Grayling's Song(11)

Auld Nancy glared at her. “Selfish wench! You would leave the rest of us to eat grass like sheep? Even enchanters, haughty and sly and thoughtless as you are, must have a care for others now and again. ’Tis the rightful thing to do.”

Desdemona Cork huffed and blew a strand of dark hair from her face. She stared at Auld Nancy for a moment, blinking her eyes and frowning, and then said, “’Tis not that I do not care about other people, but I find I rarely notice you.” She shrugged a lovely shrug.

“Notice us? Notice me?” Auld Nancy pointed a gnarled finger at the enchantress. “I am shower breeder, cloud pusher, fog mistress, ruler of the elements, and I can call down rain, constant rain, upon your head now and forevermore! Would you notice me then?”

There was a long pause. Grayling held her breath. Finally Desdemona Cork said, “I agree to provide supper for us all. Will that satisfy?”

Auld Nancy nodded.

“How will you do that?” Grayling asked.

Desdemona Cork twitched her shawls. The air sparkled and smelled of roses. Of course, thought Grayling. Enchantress.

Traffic was sparse, but now and then horses and carts passed by, and merchants and farmers, peddlers and soldiers and other folk heading from here to there and there to here. A fine gentleman on a gray horse drew near, heading east. Desdemona Cork twitched her shawls, and before Grayling could puzzle out how, the enchantress was seated before the gentleman on the horse, no longer headed east but instead north into town. Such a useful skill to have, enchanting, thought Grayling. If I could enchant someone, she wondered, what would I have him do? Bring me cool water? Brush my hair? Roast me a chicken?

Grayling watched until Desdemona Cork and her admirer disappeared. “Do you think she will come back?” Grayling asked.

“More important, will supper come back?” added Pansy.

So Pansy did have some wits after all. Grayling gave the girl an encouraging smile, but Pansy was once more looking down at her feet, her lips plumped in a pout.

Light rain began. Pook the raven woke, shook drops off his wings, and turned mouse once more. “’Tis quite an experience for this Pook, the shape shifting,” he said. “The tingling and trembling leave it breathless and most exceedingly tired.” He climbed into the pocket of Grayling’s kirtle and began to snore. She smiled. I myself have enchanted a mouse, and I find I like the company.

While Auld Nancy and Pansy rested under the shelter of the tree, Grayling headed into a thick grove to gather fallen wood for a fire. The trees grew close together, and the air was damp and chill. In her valley, the trees reached out to embrace and caress her; here they grabbed at her skirt and pulled her hair. Grayling pushed her way through, picking up small branches and twigs as she went. The air grew darker and colder, and she shivered.

The trees thinned out at last and gave way to a small clearing where a goat feasted upon the remains of a garden. Behind were the tumbled ruins of a hut. A breeze stirred the leaves on the trees with a rustling like the ghostly whispering of dark secrets. Prickles ran down Grayling’s back. She peered over her shoulder and around. No one was here. Still she was uneasy, as if she were being watched. She’d been foolish to venture so far from the others.

“You, girl, here, to me!” Grayling jumped. The call had been more growl than voice. An old woman stood at the edge of the clearing, half hidden in the trees.

“What has happened? Who has done this?” the woman asked. “Was it you, or be you here to release me?” She broke off in a fit of coughing as Grayling went closer.

Before she had taken ten steps, Grayling could see that the woman was not hidden in the trees. She was tree, all the way to her chest. Her battered old face reflected both horror and hope, and she waved her arms—not yet branches—in distress.

Grayling’s heart stopped and then hammered. Belike the woman was witch or wizard, and the smoke and shadow had come for her grimoire and left her turning tree! Did the evil force loiter still? Grayling could almost feel her own feet hardening and her ankles tingling. She dropped the gathered wood and, trembling and stumbling, crashed her way back through the woods. Behind her she could hear the woman shouting, “Come back, ye hag-born wench! A plague on ye, Mistress Do-nothing! The devil take ye!”

Right she turned, and left, and right again. Where were the others? Where was the road? Which of these trees had been a person, a person like her, like her mother, now a horrid creature of roots and wood and sap? Gasping and heaving, she burst through the forest onto the road where the others awaited.

“An old woman,” she said, once she could speak again. “Tree to her chest.” It was the stuff of nightmares. Was that how her mother looked now? Or was she tree entirely? Was there any turning back from bark to flesh?

“Aye,” said Auld Nancy, “as I told you, I have seen many such. Wise men and cunning women, magicians and wizards, gone to trees. ’Twas a pitiful sight.”

Pitiful and ominous and frightful. Grayling dropped down next to Auld Nancy, sitting close enough to feel the comforting warmth of the old woman’s body. Seeing the woman becoming tree had made their venture more frightening and more dangerous. Would the smoke and shadow come for them, too, if they meddled? Grayling’s toes tingled. What would it feel like, turning into a tree? Would it hurt? Would your feet and your legs know what was happening?

The rain fell harder, and travelers bustled or scampered or huddled within their cloaks. Auld Nancy wobbled to her feet. “Thundering toads!” she shouted to the drenching skies. “I be discomforted enough! Rain, away!” she cried, shaking her broom. And the rain stopped.