by F. E. Arliss
SHIELD SKIN
Book 2
THE OSIRIS STONE
BY
F.E. Arliss
Table of Contents
1.On the Isle
2.Tea, No Coke
3.Ugh, Water!
4.Wind On Water, Bones In Hair
5.Changeling
6.New Skin, New Skill
7.Sea Carriage & Selkies
8.Do What Thou Wilt; Harm None
9.The Skin
10.Amazonian
11.The Antlers
12.Conclave of Clans
13.The Realization
14.The Reckoning
15.The Sentence
16.Society For Beginners
17.Paris
18.Epilogue
Chapter One
On the Isle
Emery Harlow hunkered low behind a craggy boulder covered with lichen. The wind howled waspishly overhead and small clumps of dirt and rocks occasionally showered down from above as the angry heavens heaved icy breaths onto the barren Isle of Eigg.
Strangely, Emery wasn’t the least bit cold, frightened or uncomfortable. If there was one thing she’d learned from Dorothea and Bertha King and their friend Letty - the old crones who had trained her in the use of natural magic - it was always to go prepared. She supposed that was the Boy Scout motto too, but it was also the truth of survival in life. You’d suspect that a trio of aged, wrinkled witches would just rely on their own type of natural magic. The truth was, a witch had to be a fast thinker, ever adaptable and prepared for anything. Once a person had seen inside the veil of the ethers, the bizarre stuff that really went on in the world was mind-bogglingly stupefying.
Along with the motto she’d learned from Circling Wind - the Navajo elder who had taught her to fly the small Cessna plane she’d come to love - these two thoughts had always kept her safe.
His motto was silly, she supposed, but it was also a truth - semper gumby. A gumby was a weird, ugly spearmint-green, little person-shaped toy that you could twist any which way and never tore apart. Circling Wind had even given her a green gumby-doll to carry in her pocket along with a Swiss card.
So far the gumby had been useless in a practical sense. More importantly useful in a spiritual way, it had been a constant reminder to remain flexible and go with the flow. In a witch’s life, things could get...well...weird.
The Swiss card had numerous, life-saving tools in its hard, plastic-covered, credit-card-sized case. These little miracle tools included scissors, a nail file with a screwdriver head, a pair of tweezers, a toothpick and a small knife blade. It came in handy all the time and better yet, had passed through airport security without being detected. Emery had been nervous about that.
The flight to the United Kingdom had been her first long-distance or commercial flight. She’d always flown in Circling Wind’s small, rattling Cessna before. The large jet had been comfortable compared to the Cessna, but the rules had been a bit annoying. Emery was used to running wild in the endless bounds of nature around her rural village in the Midwestern part of the United States, so having to be cooped up, strapped in and ordered about hadn’t really been the greatest thing ever. Plus, there had been the guy behind her who kept ramming his rather large knees into the back of her seat. It had been annoying.
So much so, that a wrinkled Dorothea King, seated next to Emery, had snapped her slack-skinned neck about in a lightning-fast blur, turned her sharp blue eyes on the heavy man, glared at him through her dust-mote speckled horn-rim glasses and jerked her tangled, bun-topped head at him. With a flick of one long, sharp, yellowed nail at the end of a wizened finger, she’d simply forbidden him to touch Emery’s seat again. No words had been said. It was all understood. The heavy-set man had shrunk back against his seat in dismay and subsided into motionlessness.
The hustle and bustle of London’s Heathrow airport had been a wondrous mass of milling people. The foursome had been met by the commanding figure of Millicent Thorne. Millicent, though younger than Dorothea, Bertha or Letty, was clearly of the same ilk...a witch of the natural world. She had long, flowing grey hair that ended at her waist.
Dressed in a close-cut tweed blazer, camel-colored wool turtleneck and a pair of khaki jodhpurs similar to the ones Emery was wearing, she stood out in the crowd. Millicent and Emery were also clad in almost matching, lace-up paddock boots. Paddock boots were a type of ankle-high lace-up boots with low heels that were common in the horse-riding world. Emery wished she had the same aura of power that followed Millicent, Dorothea, Bertha, Letty and others of their kind.
Later, Emery would find out that she could summon that aura if she wished. She was still young, not even eighteen years old yet, a youngster in her school grades having started school early. The aura hadn’t had time to stick to her like it had the older women who had worn the cloak of natural magic for decades. This year, Emery would find that not having it yet would eventually turn out to be a blessing.
Millicent helped the four of them navigate the congested traffic and confusing ‘other side of the road’ driving conditions and had dropped them off after a few hours at their rented Victorian-era house in Fife, Scotland, near the University of St. Andrew’s.
Dorothea King had pulled some strings and gotten Emery a free-ride scholarship to attend college there. It had been so exciting and the first semester, though a hard adjustment, had been a terrific amount of fun. Emery had walked to the house every day and the three older women had helped her review her studies. At least one of them always knew the answers, so Emery had been a star pupil that semester.
She’d made friends and taken up English with a posh accent that had Letty and Bertha rolling their eyes and Dorothea smirking in contentment. Dorothea said it was always good to have several accents and cadences to draw upon in life. She’d assured Emery it would be useful at some point and urged her to get the upper-class modulations exactly correct. As Dorothea explained to her, a person never knew when they might have to become someone else.
At the time, Emery didn’t quite understand that, but got the fact that sometimes acting was required in a witch’s repertoire.
Emery had been able to spend one glorious semester at the University of St. Andrew’s in Fife, Scotland before the onset of the Covid virus had sent her fleeing from the virus-filled halls of her dorm in the Agnes Blackadder Hall. The four of them had been picked up once more in the old model Range Rover that Millicent Thorne drove and zoomed off to the Isle of Eigg. There they’d taken shelter with Millicent in her remote home, Thorneridge Abbey. Thorneridge was an ancient, dark, gloomy, rain-lashed estate atop an enormous bluff above the sea.
Surrounded by rolling cascades of viciously-thorned wild roses of a long-thought lost breed of wild bush called Rosa spinosissima - Emery could see why they’d been left growing - they presented a natural barrier all around the Abbey. Millicent informed her that they’d been ‘made nice’ by some rose growers and now there was a less-thorny variety called ‘Burnett’ roses. Millicent had snorted inelegantly and rolled her eyes with this comment.
In amongst the rolling hummocks of extremely thorny, small, white single-row petalled roses, were other clumps of yellow Scotch Broom, red clover, harebells and other wild flowers. Depending on the season, there would always be herbs and flowers in bloom to brighten the dreary island landscape around the Abbey.
It had originally been an ancient temple of some sort, then was overrun by Romans in the 5th century and became a fort, then a Catholic church for a century. In the 7th century, natives from the Isle had run the priests from the Abbey off the Isle and it had been a stronghold of natural magic ever since. Being remote and heavily fortified by nature, m
an-made defenses and magical runes and talismans, it had never been overtaken again. Not even during the crazed, witch-burning plague of the middle ages that had killed many covens on the mainland. Dozens of witches, their families and followers had fled to the Isle of Eigg. The ancestors of many still comprised the workers and tenants of the estate and Isle.
The entire island was populated by less than a hundred people in its twelve square miles and Emery knew all of them. She’d run the entire length and breadth of the isle that year and knew all its nooks and crannies. It was as remote as one could get and most of the population still relied on peat log heat, though Millicent had installed solar and wind-turbine power generators all over the island. Millicent was clever and forward thinking, so Emery had learned a lot of very practical things.
A year spent at Thorneridge had also taught Emery a plethora of new magic, arcane skills, and had brought her to where she was now - hunkered on the side of a cliff avoiding sea sprites that were combing the rocks below for newly washed ashore items from the storm. It wasn’t that Emery couldn’t handle a couple of sea sprites, she just didn’t really want to have to get any wetter than she already was. Sea sprites were always so playful and liked to leap on her shoulder, showering her with salty drops of brine as they patted her hair and delicately explored her nose holes, ear holes and mouth. Occasionally she threatened to bite their fingers just to get a breather from their invasively investigating little hands. Sometimes they annoyed Don Juan, the small grey mouse who usually rode in the space created against the back of her head where the French braid she wove into her long blond locks left a perfect little gap for him to crawl into. Don Juan was the purveyor of the beautifully luminous Fijian pearl that graced a piercing inside her left upper-ear curve.
One of Emery’s first magical experiences had been to forage for items that she felt had significance to her in the outside environs of her small rural village back in the midwest of the U.S.. She’d brought back a variety of items, including a box turtle, and set them out on the slab of granite that served as the outdoor altar at the King sister’s dilapidated mansion house. Under a full moon, she’d written one of her first spells and to everyone’s surprise it had manifested in one of the few known ‘shield skins’ in the history of wiccan lore.
Emery’s beautiful silky skin was deceptive. It could not be punctured - which had been proven over and over again through the trials of rattlesnake bites, bat claws, murderous priestess’s attempts on her life and even poisonous dart-frog contact. None of it had any effect. When the fire had leapt high that full-moon night, a wonderfully detailed tattoo of a turtle had burned itself into the thin skin inside Emery’s wrist. It was her first tribal marking.
After surviving an attempt on her life in the Amazon and being rescued by a flurry of circling bats, softball-size tattoos of open-winged bats had appeared on her upper, outer-chest, their intricately-veined wings open and tiny, delicate feet wrapped up over the protrusions of her exposed collar bones.
Emery didn’t have any mouse or spider tattoos and she supposed that was because her familiars were with her. The magical beings that came to her rescue were still with her spiritually in the form of the tattoos. She did have a beautifully intricate spider web tattoo etched in silver that radiated out from her navel. That one was because she’d learned to ride the winds using a spider-web like energy tether that she shot out from her energy core. When she’d been struck by lightning, the tattoo appeared.
Don Juan had stolen the luminous pearl in her ear from a Fijian princess’s jewelry box and had often regaled her with his wild tale of riding ocean freighters and fighting off much larger rats as he made the perilous journey to get the pearl for the person who was soon to be appointed his magical partner - Emery in this case. He was one of her animal familiars and when he’d popped out of the ceremonial fire and hopped onto her knee, she’d been delighted and surprised.
He’d been followed by a large, black spider with shining coal-dark eyes in a bright blue face. Deira was a jumping spider and Emery’s other familiar. Deira was extremely athletic and could ride the wind using the silk she spun from her abdomen and jump over a meter at a time - a remarkable feat for her small nickel-sized body. Deira was currently scrunched into a tiny ball the size of a pea and nestled into the small hollow behind Emery’s earlobe. The spider didn’t like the invasive manners of the sea sprites and had bitten a couple of them when their wet fingers had pressed against her as they explored Emery’s head. They’d soon learned to leave the left earlobe alone. It was Deira’s territory!
Don Juan wasn’t too fond of them either, but since they thought he was cute, he put up with the occasional wet exploration just so he could be cooed over by the creatures, who liked to pat his head and feel the thin membranes of his little pink ears. Plus, he needed to keep an eye on his pearl - they were such little thieves, always looking for shiny things.
Emery hoped the sprites found a shiny trinket soon and would slowly recede into the waves oohing and ahhing over whatever they’d found. For now, Emery simply pulled her navy-blue fleece, antler-topped, ear-flap cap down further over her ears, flipped the hood of her wind and rain-proof anorak up over her head, pulled the low back of the anorak up under her bottom to keep her tush dry, then drew her knees up inside the jacket’s thin skin and leaned her head against the lichen-covered boulder.
A nice snooze while enjoying the sounds of the storm, the battering rhythm of the waves on the cliffs, and the pungent odor of the moss by her nose, and maybe the mischievous little wretches would be gone when she woke.
Chapter Two
Tea and Water
Gradually the storm died down and Emery flipped back the anorak’s hood and listened carefully for the low splish-splashing sounds and slurping slaps that the sea sprite’s small feet made as they clambered through tidal pools and over the wet rocks of the shore. No sound rode the wind except the slosh of the waves and the cries of gulls. The coast was clear.
Standing, Emery stretched, then headed over the rocks to the thin line of gouged-out steps that were invisible to the untrained eye. It only took her fifteen minutes to get back to the Abbey. She threw off her wet anorak and hung it on one of the ancient old wrought iron hooks that lined the dark, musty, tunnel-like entrance to the Abbey. Long cloaks, green rain slickers, rubber boots and an assortment of house slippers cluttered the walls and baseboards along the hall. Emery unlaced her soaked-through paddock boots and propped the heels up against the stone wall to allow the water to run out faster, then slid on a thick pair of sheepskin house slippers that the local herders made from the hides of their flocks. They kept the bone-numbing cold of the heavily worn but still uneven stone floors off her feet.
Dorothea, Millicent, Bertha and Letty were having tea in front of a roaring fire in what they called ‘the study’. Really it was the largest room in the Abbey besides the dining room, kitchen and a hall used for meetings. Most importantly, it had fire. Most of the rooms in the Abbey had a fireplace. This one was larger and provided more warmth. There was just something about fire that made the insidious damp of Eigg more bearable. Emery loved fire. Fire loved Emery. She could engulf herself in fire and make fire leap from her fingers. It was marvelous!
Tea had been an acquired taste for Emery. She’d been more of a Coca-cola kind of girl. But as Millicent said, “needs must,” which basically meant, put up with it because it’s all you’re getting. There is no Coke here. It was too heavy to import on the weekly supply delivery boat and too expensive. Tea was light on the boat and went a long way. Drink the damn tea and be grateful.
Slowly, Emery had grown to really like tea. Millicent was a bee-keeper and Emery had learned to tend the hives without getting stung. No facial netting was allowed when tending the hives. Millicent had taught her to breathe in tune with the hive - weirdly, there really was a sort of inhaling and exhaling sound that accompanied a hive. The other thing Emery had learned was that bees were very polite if you were all Zen and happy
to see them. She hadn’t been stung at all after the first three times - not that their attempts to pierce her impenetrable skin had any effect, they’d just left little pink dots at the site of each attempt.
Plus, she really liked the honey that came running out in thick amber waves and she found that if she put her hand down in the hive and thought deeply about how grateful she was for the honey, the bees sort of seemed to fill the bucket faster and would cover her arm in a bee-sleeve of activity. Face it, bees were just cool! Not getting stung and having them make a bee-sleeve was even cooler!
Having developed the habit of putting honey and goat milk in her tea, Emery figured it was about the same as having a hot chocolate anywhere else. Thick, sweet and comforting. She slumped into one of the ancient worn brocade chairs by the fire and sipped the tea in great warming slurps. It was so good. Letting a contented, “ahhh”, escape her lips, she looked at the four older women fondly and said, “Hi! The storm was awesome! Had to avoid some sprites, as Deira was not in the mood for them.”
The four crones smiled and nodded and then continued the low murmur of their conversation. They were discussing water magic - one of Emery’s least favorite topics. When she’d first started studying with the King sisters and Letty in the States, she’d learned a lot about the nature of plants and had first shown her skill with fire magic. Taking trips to the American Southwest, she’d learned more herbal lore, energy magic tied to ley lines, and the traditions of the Navajo.