Bravely(88)
The other hunter was the Cailleach, who was ancient even then. She was old and tired of doing unpleasant things; she longed to put the ugly work behind her and focus only on growth, and so she had a plan. She was tricky even then, and she used a trick to make one of the small pools of water she controlled become a perfect reflection of the sky. One of the strange carefree air beings got caught in it as it fled, and before it could make sense of the trap, the Cailleach scooped it out. The quarry was not entirely like her, but it was enough like her that she could hold it firmly.
Walking to the craggy standing stone near the pool, she pressed the being against the stone so that it was trapped between stone and skin.
“You will no longer be air,” she said. “You will be a god.”
The stone hummed with the power of it, with the transfer of the dread and the ruin. The airy creature cried out as it was given form for the first time. The Cailleach’s hand sank right into the stone.
This was the first of the Feradachs.
“No,” he said bitterly, understanding at once what his duty was to be. “There must be a way out.”
The Cailleach smiled.
“Of course,” she said. “But it will have to be a trick.”
Merida sat back from the stone, her mind returning to the present day beside Leezie. Time moved sluggishly around her.
“Leezie,” she said, her voice barely audible.
“I’ll help you think of one,” Leezie said.
The two sisters walked back to the castle, and joined the revelry there.
Later, as the snow began to fall on the shortest night of the year, as Merida went to the kitchen to get some fresh bread, as she stood there, looking in the fire and remembering, she heard a knock.
BRAVELY is “historical.”
Note the quotes, if you will. “Historical,” not historical. Don’t get me wrong. Real historical fact leaps through DunBroch like a wolfhound, chewing spoons, breaking furniture, and curling up before the fire. Within these pages you’ll find real historical figures (albeit somewhat displaced from their true time lines), real historical snacks (pulled from cookbooks with very old-timey spelling), and real historical struggles (sung in ballads, written in poems, found in graves).
I was a medieval history major, and I wanted to do my best to put as much history in here as I could. I am also a bagpiper and harpist who was raised in the peculiar pan-Celtic mixing bowl that is American Scottish-Irish diaspora, and I wanted to put as much of that culture in as I could, too. And finally, I am one of five children, and I wanted to also put in as much of the truthful chaos and frustration and joy of a large family as I could.
But at the end of the day, Bravely is a fairy tale, and it is true in the way dialogue in a novel is true. It would be dull to transcribe a real conversation. Better for the story to make the dialogue on the page feel like the real conversation.
My hope is not to trick readers into believing or doubting everything within these pages but rather to be curious enough to go hunting for the rest of the truth. Attentive readers will find the Dásachtach, the shielings, and, if they are very watchful (or perhaps very unlucky), a cunning goddess named the Cailleach.
THANK you to my editor Elana for her intense enthusiasm, Lauren for early midwifing, Steve for letting me play in the sandbox, my agent Richard for his endless patience, Liz for allowing me to steal her dog, Sarah for the first read, Victoria for the middle read, Mom for the last, and Ed, always Ed, for the knock upon the door.
MAGGIE STIEFVATER is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Raven Cycle, the Shiver trilogy, and other novels for young and adult readers. She is also an artist, an auto enthusiast, and a bagpiper. She lives on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley with her husband, two children, and an assortment of fainting goats.