Silver Eve (6 page)

I
was
curious, gruelingly so. But I changed tactics, refusing to ask anything more, since the more I questioned the more he evaded. After a moment he repeated, taunting: “Nature's daughter, one of the
four.
”

I bit my tongue, waited.

He moved a little then, fixing me with his gaze. “Single daughters of twin mothers, born on the same day in the same hour. Alike and yet opposite.”

Harker was speaking of Lark, of me, of our nearly sister connection. He said it like a chant:

“Her hair runs brown like the falling leaf, and yours is the rippling moonlight on a lake. Her eyes are the hazel of a new acorn and yours are the blue of the sea. Her skin is touched by sun, yours is the pale of the full moon.” He shuffled a little more, circling slowly so that he was almost behind me. “She stays quiet like a fawn; you move easily in company. She wears her feelings; you suffocate yours. So different. And yet…” Harker lifted his scarred hand to point at my back. “What is alike between you? What do you share with your dearest Lark?”

I knew, small as it was. “We share a birthmark.”

The seer nodded. “Yes. A mark. Just there above the blade edge of your left shoulder.” He reached a finger to touch it; I shivered, jerked away, and turned on him—

He pulled back, cowering and shouting, “I am sorry! I am sorry! I am sorry!”

“You did nothing…” I protested, but stopped. Harker was not apologizing to me; he was looking up to the empty, intense blue.

There was silence while he searched, waiting for some answer, and then suddenly he fell to the ground with a scream of anguish and began writhing in pain. He held his hands out in front of him; there was a shimmer of heat rising from his blisters. They were burning. I grabbed his wrists, dragged his racked body to the stream, and plunged his hands into the cold water. “Hold them there, it will help.” Running water could wash small magic away. But I doubted it could this.

He lay there, hands in fists underwater, convulsing and sobbing into his shoulder, “I am sorry!” What he was sorry for I didn't know, but I was sorry for him. He was too old yet too far from death to be enduring such agony.

At length old Harker worked his way to his knees and drew his hands from the water. They were raw but no longer on fire. Sober, quiet, and suddenly very sane, the seer murmured, “All want me to share what I know; all want me to help them face their fates—as if fates could not be changed in an instant! And yet…And yet no one cares for my fate. No one wishes to help me.”

He raised his head, looked straight at me. “Except you, Eveline Carew. I did not foresee your kindness to me.” Then, sitting back a little and squaring his shoulders, the seer said, “You have earned this, young Healer. I tell you this freely, so listen well:

“You see that a darkness is coming. I will not call it by name, but know that this darkness begins as a violence of Nature and becomes the violence of Man. It will consume us all if it cannot be stopped. But you, Evie Carew, are one who can help stop this darkness. You asked three questions before, so three things I will share. Not your questions, nor things that are in and of themselves your fate, but knowing these three things will help guide you:

“You must find the shell amulet. And if you love your cousin you will not ask for any help.

“Secondly, you believe you are hiding because you feel grief at a death, but that is not what you truly hide from. You must open your eyes.

“And lastly, they will strike you where you are weak.”

Harker cringed then, as if he knew what weakness was, as if he expected his hands to burst with new pain. But nothing happened, and so he straightened and made a funny little bow and began walking away.

I followed. “Am I supposed to thank you for this? For leaving me with more questions?”

“Yes.”

“But that is no gift—”

“I did not say I would give you a gift, I said you earned these.”

“But then can I not barter for more earnings? Will you not say more?”

“No.”

And Harker brushed off his filthy robe and, avoiding the single path, turned to the wall of reeds.

“Harker!”

He ignored me. Yet I couldn't let him leave; burden me with more questions. “Harker!”

I ran to catch up but he turned on me fiercely, hissing, “They will strike you where you are weak! Where are you weak, young girl?” He grinned meanly, stuck his face too close. “Where. Are. You.
WEAK?
”

I held my ground. The seer was mad, maybe, but not harmful.

He answered for me. “Curious—too eager for knowledge, Healer! And longing for what was. Curiosity sways emotion, as does longing, Healer; they are
needs.
Be careful what you need!”

The seer whirled then, spiraling back, railing to the marsh, “I have given her more than I dared! I will suffer. I will suffer.” He parted the brittle stems.

“Milkweed, Harker,” I called out abruptly. “Break milkweed stems, smear them on your hands. The milk might ease a bit of your pain.”

Harker paused and looked back. “That,” he said, eyeing me sadly, “I already know.” He turned around again and pushed in.

His drab robe was quickly swallowed by the forest of brown. Then all that was left was the faint applauding of the reeds.

THERE WAS NO
sign of any threatening darkness on this little island. I sat in the middle of the green lawn looking at silly, fat clouds huffing across a lucid blue sky, listened to the
brr
and shrill of redwings as they conversed clinging to the velvet tips of cattails. It was sweetly pastoral: a bee drunkenly weaving through the clover, the kid bleating after his mother, the stream bubbling quick and clear and cold; none showed concern. Harker's ominous foreboding had echoed mine—that something dark was coming to our little world—but it was not present here. Perhaps I'd lost myself at last.

Except that Harker had said those words:
You will find no peace here.
Prophetic or mocking, they were more than a little thorn. And his cryptic verse, his challenge and warnings made everything unsettled and wanting. It burned me that he said I
earned
those things. He knew questions would bubble up in me, eat away at any peace. I should defy his words to prove him wrong; stay here in this spot until whoever owned this hut and these goats returned in a week, a fortnight, a lifetime.

I lasted two days.

Two days: milking the nanny goat, collecting berries and salad greens, gathering dead branches and fishing cinder stones for fires out of the stream. The hut had a cup and a plate and a broom for sweeping; I wove a basket from the willow to add as way of thanks. I cleaned my marsh-filthy clothes. I played with the kid, or rather, he ran from me as I chased him. And I slept under the stars, for it was so pretty, and too warm for the hut. Lark would have loved this solace.

But while my hands were useful, my mind was fixed on the old seer. What had Harker meant by not letting Lark help me? What had he meant by
find the shell
? Why did he say to open my eyes? No chore, no sleep helped me escape his words or the want to understand his prophecies….I finally had to surrender in agreement with the seer, the sweetness of this place paling as I fretted: There was no peace here.

Another battle raged inside as well: I already knew how to find answers to the seer's offerings. I had the yew and minion still; they could be combined in a spell to create a powerful mind opener called the Insight. Except it was a dangerous crafting, and something for a magician, not a simple Healer.

They were different, magic-makers and Healers. Healers were born with their gift, while a magician was someone who learned the craft. A Healer's work was limited to the ways of Nature; the magician's not. A magician was a conjurer, but, then, he did not have the Healer's hands, the natural instinct for rescue, for assuaging pain. Either way, efforts done in ignorance made for danger.

But, if a Healer chose to study the ways of magic beyond her innate understanding of herb and mineral, then she blended simple instinct with learned technique—a most powerful combination, far more powerful than any magician. And the title of White Healer was bestowed.

I knew the makings of the Insight spell. Certainly not from Grandmama, who had no use for curiosity-soothing enchantments. Grandmama was not curious; “necessary knowledge” was all she wanted. I was not so calm—though I knew Lark thought me so. For Grandmama it was enough to be a Healer, but I wanted to be a White Healer. I wanted to learn magic.

'Twas not difficult to search out such knowledge. Market days brought any variety of mysticism mixed into gossip. Someone could be pointed to if you asked, or eagerness might draw someone to find you. Dame Gringer was a White Healer from the village of Crene who traded geese at market. She'd enjoyed my interest and had lent me metal-bound books of spells and potions, which I'd pored over in between barters. At the end of the day I'd return the books and ask a handful of questions. “You have potential,” the dame would always encourage.

Herbs and minerals used for simple healing had much greater powers when combined with the proper spells. I learned that yew could be used to raise the dead, or, combined with minion and with proper crafting, yew could make the Insight spell. I learned as well that using such a spell could be life changing. Not even a year back Dame Gringer made the Insight spell because she'd wanted to learn why her son had abruptly left their village. Ever after she was mute and came no more to market. No one knew if this was brought on because of what she saw or the spell itself. Eowan Holt said she'd uttered a last word about
breeders;
he laughed that she was struck dumb for a gaggle of geese. But whatever the reason, it cut short my studies. Had Dame Gringer not gone silent, I might have learned how to use the yew to raise the dead.

I might have saved Raif.

Two days I lasted, arguing every reason why I should neither attempt something beyond my gift nor use up my remaining poison—my
escape,
as Harker said. But the answers to his portents were too great a temptation.

Besides, every ingredient for the spell was at hand, and that seemed no coincidence.

On the third day of my sojourn I undertook to cast the Insight spell. The preparations began at dawn—the importance of which Dame Gringer had impressed upon me above any actual casting. “Show that your intention is sincere,” she'd scribbled in the margins of her books, “The rest will follow.” And so I woke at first light and carefully laid out all the mal stones that I'd gathered the day before in a wide circle on the lawn to create the neutral space, sweeping out any bits of pebble and twig and seed from the grass within. I milked the nanny goat and drank the first cupful with a handful of blackberries. Then I tethered the goats far from the circle with strands from the protective willow tree, so they could neither interrupt nor fall prey to the spell's workings. I set a cinder stone, a hard stone, the yew, and minion just inside the circle and added the second cup of goat's milk within as well. I took the last things from my satchel and laid them down: the lark feather and the leather ring. I felt some guilt to use them for this, but mementos made spells most powerful.

I washed in the stream, then laid my cloak and frock and sandals to the side, wearing only the white undershift as a show of humility. I brushed my hands over my body to shed old energy. Then—with an earnest wish that I'd done well—I took a deep, shaky breath, picked up the branch I'd broken from the beech tree, and stepped inside the circle.

With the beech I scraped a cross, quartering the circle. In one quarter I carved the word
Shell;
in the second,
Lark;
the third,
See,
defining the questions that I wanted answered. I did not ask to learn my weakness; the seer had already told me that. I kneeled in the remaining quarter.

Minion first,
I reminded myself.
Minion shields Earth from yew.
I opened the tiny vial of dried minion and divided it equally, mounding a tiny heap of minion over each of the three words. Then I picked up the vial of yew and poured all of it into my palm. I sorted equally the needles, bark, and wizened little drupes that still burned rich red in color. I saved three needles, three chips of bark, and three drupes, which I dropped into the goat's milk. The rest of the yew was portioned atop the minion heaps.

“Representations of intent,”
I murmured; items to focus each answer. I pulled a strand of my hair and placed it on top of the
Shell
pile. 'Twas the weakest offering, since I had no idea what this shell was, but if I was meant to find it, then the answer would be within me. I placed the feather for
Lark
and put Raif's woven leather ring on
See.

Glass for clarity.
I took the hard stone and smashed the empty vial of yew, then equally sprinkled the shards. One shard I used to pierce my little finger, adding a drop of blood to each pile.
“Life's blood,”
I murmured. Then I pressed my hands into the earth by each word, saying aloud three times, “Show me the reasons; show me the whys.”

I went over the steps in my head one more time for good measure, then picked up the cinder stone and struck it on the hard stone next to the first offering. I watched it spark and flare into a little flame before going on, until three little herb piles burned white-hot and then fizzled. As soon as the flames died, I swept the piles into the center so the smoking ash mingled. Then I tipped the goat's milk over my scalding hands—all but the last bit, which I drank, taking care not to swallow any yew.

Finished. The cup placed outside the circle. Fingers laced in lap. I breathed—in, out, in….The exhale was so very loud. Another breath, and another, and then I could not stand the silence. Had I done well? Would I have to wait? How long? A plea was already forming—

Then only half uttered. The poisoned milk seared my belly, raced fire through my veins. I wrapped my arms around my stomach, gagging against the burn, and maybe I tipped to one side, to stop the world from spinning, but none of that was important….

I was flying, the earth racing far beneath. There was the marsh, then solid ground, a canopy of trees, and a lake hemmed by rock and fed by countless waterfalls all thundering down the face of a cliff. 'Twas a bird's flight, this. I recognized the flash of wing—
my wing
—from the corner of my eye, the black feather above white. The bird I'd rescued was the form I'd taken in this spell; burned wing and all, I was flying. In a heart-stopping breath, I skimmed the cliff of waterfalls, turned to sweep far out into the center of the lake, and then shot straight toward one furious torrent.

No easing of speed, no gasp for air. I burst through the fall and landed in a hollow behind the sheet of water, into blurred sight and deadened sound. There was a ledge of some sort, a faint shimmer of light. Red, slime-slicked rocks before it…

It lay there, the answer to my first question: a whelk's shell—pinkish gray on the outside, pearlescent within. I'd seen pictures of them in Dame Gringer's books. This one was no different, small and ordinary, discarded on the damp shelf. And yet a feeling stabbed through me with sudden force—that this insignificant object wanted rescue from the cold and dripping walls, that I should scoop it up and carry it home. But even as I moved closer, a protest began—a faint rumbling of sound, which grew into shadow form, bellowing huge and black and utterly horrifying. A stench burst out from it in revolting waves, swallowing all the senses, and I rolled to avoid it and fell straight into cold blackness before another spiral of flight began….

I spun upward out of water. Slick stone became hard-hewn rock—a warm gray splattered with onyx and mica—rock that was cut, stacked, designed. My gaze traveled up, up, following battlements and turrets and banners all spilling precipitously above an enormous canyon. A castle, carved from the very stone it was so precariously built upon. It stood majestic, strong, and wholly stunning. The sky was a luminous backdrop, the sun slanted finely etched shadows in curves and corners. I soared straight up the east bulwark, and then made a dizzying fall between its tallest turrets. The dive sent my stomach into my throat. I shut my eyes, then blinked wide, for I was crossing a small bit of green—an interior courtyard bursting with white blossoms. I spied the blue of a stone-rimmed pond, and then went racing up and out, over the west turrets to a broad scape of grass.

Two horses stood stark against the lush green—dappled gray and brilliant white—with two riders who'd paused midride to share an embrace. I remembered those horses, remembered their startling visit to Merith. And I knew their riders: my cousin, Lark, and the Rider Gharain.

I swept right over their heads and flew on, no voice, no hand, nor anything to call to my cousin. I'd only a glimpse to barely think silly things: How was she riding a horse? What were those leggings she wore? Where was her moss-green frock? And then to understand: this castle, this canyon—this was Tarnec. It meant Lark had left Merith, as I had. She'd found a new home. She was with her love.

My second question answered. And I thought, briefly, gladly:
She is happy.