Daughter Of The Forest (25 page)

“Your hands,” he said grimly, “what’s the matter with your hands?” and his long fingers moved gently over mine, feeling the roughness and the swelling and the hardening of the joints. “Sorcha, what has happened? Why don’t you speak to us?”

I was mindful that my story could not be told, not even to my brothers. So, I touched my closed lips with my fingers then placed my hands together and swept them swiftly apart, shaking my head.
I may not speak. Not at all. I may not tell you
. I had a strong shield around my thoughts, but I had reckoned without Conor’s intuition.

“She has laid this curse on you,” said Conor, “that much is plain. With what end? Is there an end?”

I shook my head miserably, showing him again with fingers on lips that I could not tell him.

“You can say nothing at all?” ventured Diarmid, his face a picture of frustration. “But then how will we know—how will we—”

“Have you no memory of the time away?” Conor asked him cautiously.

“Memory? Not exactly. It’s more like…”

“Feelings, not thoughts,” put in Padriac who, of them all, seemed most like his old self, if somewhat quieter. “Hunger, fear, warmth, cold, danger, shelter. That’s all a swan knows. It was—different. Very different.” I saw him look down at his arms for a moment, and I suspected he was wishing that, as a man, he could still fly.

“You must understand, Sorcha,” said Conor in his measured way, “that the mind of a wild creature is unlike that of a man or woman. I believe very little crosses the boundaries with us, when we change. As swans we can see the things that occur to man and woman, but we cannot comprehend them as you do; and once transformed back to our human shape, we remember the other life only dimly, as through an autumn mist. Padriac summed it up well. A wild creature knows the need to hide, to protect, to flee, to seek food and refuge. But conscience, and justice, and reason—these are outside the span of its mind. Finbar finds this punishment hard, for he values these things above all others. The lady Oonagh might almost have chosen the curse especially for him; it is hard enough for the rest of us.” He looked across the circle of firelight at Finbar, who watched us silently, his face in shadow.

“Sorcha’s own punishment has been worse,” said Cormack soberly. “To be alone in the forest, so far from everything, and unable to speak.” He looked at me closely.

“At least we have returned, and can set things right for you,” said Liam, who was stretching his long legs cautiously as if to check they still worked properly. “Or is this some vision, to be gone before we have time for thought or action? For how long are we returned to our human form?”

But I could not answer. To tell this was to tell part of the story, and it was forbidden.

“Not long, I suspect, from Sorcha’s look of misery,” said Diarmid bitterly.

“I would suspect, as little as one night,” said Conor. “In the old tales, it is dusk and dawn that are the times of changing. We must be prepared for the worst.”

“One night?” Diarmid was outraged. “What can be done in one night? I would have vengeance; I would undo the ill I helped create. But we are far from home, too far to return. Why are you here, Sorcha? What about Father Brien who was to have helped you?”

That was another story, and so could be told. I mimed for them. A Christian cross; coins on the eyelids. Flight up, up into the distant sky and away to the west. They understood me well enough.

“So our old friend is dead,” said Liam.

“And not from natural causes, I’ll be bound,” added Cormack. “That fellow was like an oak, slight though he was; he’d a strength in him better than many a good fighting man’s.”

“The lady Oonagh’s hand stretches out,” said Diarmid.

Conor glanced at him. “There will be vengeance,” he said. “Full and terrible vengeance. His killers will be scattered in pieces, and crows will pick at their white bones.”

We all stared at him. His tone had not even changed.

“We believe you,” said Diarmid, raising an eyebrow.

“He was a Christian,” put in Padriac. “Perhaps he would have wished forgiveness, not retribution.”

Conor stared into the fire. “The forest protects its own,” he said.

“This was a great loss to you, Sorcha,” said Liam. “Have you now no companions here, save solitude?”

“She cannot tell you,” said Conor. “But all this is for a purpose, I have no doubt. Sorcha, do you know the length of this enchantment? Is there an end to this? And when may we return here?”

I shook my head, placing both hands over my mouth. Why wouldn’t they stop asking questions? I felt a tear trickle down my cheek.

“It will be a long time, I think.” Finbar’s voice was very soft. “A time to be measured in years rather than moons. You must not press Sorcha for answers.”

Not one of them questioned what he had said. When Finbar spoke thus, it was always the truth.

“Years!” exclaimed Liam.

“She cannot be left here alone for so long,” said Diarmid. “It is not safe, nor seemly.”

“There is no alternative,” Conor said. “Besides, you know your old stories as well as the rest of us. There must be a purpose to this, but she is forbidden to tell. Right, Sorcha?”

“Tasks,” said Cormack quietly, from where he sat with his arms around the dog. “There will be tasks to complete before the end.” He saw my nod of agreement. “What can we do, Sorcha?”

I shook my head, spread my hands wide.
Nothing. Nothing, but stay safe. Stay alive for long enough
.

“It has something to do with her hands,” said Conor slowly, and his voice was dark with some feeling I could not fully understand. “Not for nothing would you damage yourself thus. There is some evil at work here, I am certain of it.”

I shook my head, for he was only half right.

No. Not evil. This is the way. You must let me do this. I can save you
.

“Here,” said Padriac from behind me. I had not noticed him going into the cave, but now he emerged with my spindle in one hand and a length of the telltale thread dangling, sharp and brittle. The firelight glowed on its deceptive, delicate strands. There was a general intake of breath, and Padriac sat down among the others, the spindle balanced between his capable hands.

“What is this?” asked Liam, outraged, as his fingers touched the fiber. “This thread is full of fine needles. No wonder her hands are ruined. This thread is—”

“It’s starwort,” said Padriac. “Sorcha has the fiber ready for spinning, and the start of a woven square.”

“Spinning with starwort!” exclaimed Cormack. “Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“You yourself mentioned tasks,” Conor reminded his twin. “It looks as if you were right.”

“You don’t need to sound so surprised,” said Cormack with a trace of his old grin.

“Six brothers.” Finbar had been very quiet, and now his voice was constrained, as if he spoke only because he must. “Six brothers, six garments, maybe?”

“Garments of starwort? I would not gladly wear such a rough shirt,” commented Diarmid.

Conor’s level gaze went around them all, appraising. “You might be glad to wear it,” he said slowly, “if it had the power to undo the spell.” It had not taken him long to work it out.

For a moment, as they looked at one another across the fire, it seemed to me that there was some communication between my brothers which needed no words, and that this time I was shut out. It dazzled me, that this puzzle had been solved so quickly; it hurt me, to know my brothers’ cleverness, their insight, their very love and concern for me would be gone again the moment the light of dawn touched their troubled faces. I was learning the nature of magic; it seemed to work according to a strict set of rules. And yet, somehow, it never worked in quite the way you expected. Like the Fair Folk themselves, it had twists and turns that always took you by surprise.

I looked around the circle, sensing my brothers were closer now than they had ever been, and then I met Finbar’s eyes where he sat a little aside, watching me. There was a wariness in his expression that I had never seen before, an uncertainty that concerned me, for of them all, he had always been the one surest of his way. I tried to reach him with my mind.

What is it, Finbar
?

But it was Conor who replied.

“It is hard to come back, Sorcha, and harder for some than others.”

“We may have little time here,” Liam said, getting to his feet. “If what Conor suggests is correct, we may have only until dawn. We must do what we can to provide for our sister.”

“Only one night, and stuck out here in the forest,” said Diarmid bitterly. “Where can we start, when there is so much to be done?”

“Some things can be achieved,” said Liam, taking control. “Small things, maybe, but useful. Believe me, Sorcha, it pains and shames each one of us to be forced to leave you here alone. But we can at least ensure a little comfort for you. The cutting of wood, the readying of this place for winter, for I fear we will not return before the snows are deep here; this can be done by lantern light. Have you an axe?”

I nodded.

“To the west there is grazing land, and grain stored,” said Conor.

“How far?” asked Cormack.

“You can get there and back before daybreak,” his twin answered. “Take Linn. It’s dark, and the paths are treacherous. She will lead you. I suspect she would not consent to stay behind, in any case.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Padriac. “Or would do, but these boots are killing me. That’s the problem with transformations. You keep on growing, but your clothes stay the same size. Maybe yours would fit me, Finbar.” They fitted him well enough, for my youngest brother was half a head taller than when I had last seen him. His outgrown pair might do for me one day, if I ever grew into them. Then Padriac and Cormack were off under the trees, small lantern in hand and knives in their belts, for they had found those as well. I hoped the weapons would not be needed. I thought they might go unnoticed amid the midsummer revelers, whatever their errand. Linn followed; it would have been beyond anyone’s power to stop her. At least of the three of them she knew the way.

Liam and Diarmid set to with axe and hatchet, lopping branches off the dead ash tree and stacking them under the shelter of an overhang. They worked with a speed and precision that startled me, and stopped for neither food nor drink. They took the second lamp to light their task, leaving the rest of us in semidarkness by the glowing fire.

“Now,” said Conor, “I want to see those hands. Have you a supply of salves? Beeswax?”

I showed him my dwindling stocks, stored in a niche of the cave.

“This will not last long,” he said gravely. “Then what will you do? Is there not some other way this task can be accomplished?”

I shook my head.

“Then at least I can tend to you tonight, and perhaps seek some help for you. You must understand, little owl, that this is the worst thing for us. Not being here with you, having to watch you suffer on our behalf, seeing you sacrifice your life for ours—this cuts us deep. For Finbar it is hardest. He, of us all, needs to follow the path that leads straight ahead, whatever obstacles are in the way. To have that taken from him, on what seems little more than a whim, tears him apart. And now he must hurt what he loves best.”

We moved back to the fire, where Finbar still sat silent. Conor took my small hand in his and began to rub the salve gently into my skin, rolling and kneading my fingers with his own. He stopped talking and instead began to hum softly, a monotonous little tune that had beginning and ending woven into one, so that it went on and on, and seemed to fit well with the strange stillness of the night. Further away the dull thud of axe on wood punctuated the flow of the song. I began to relax. At first I had flinched, for it hurt to have anyone touch my hands; but after a while the song lulled me and I heard owls in the trees around, and the croaking of frogs in the many tiny waterways around the lake. And then Finbar came over to sit by me and took my other hand in his. Conor’s hand was warm and full of life; Finbar’s was like ice. For a while we sat thus, and I surrendered my damaged fingers to my brothers’ ministrations, storing up images and feelings to last me the long, weary time till midwinter. It would have to be enough. Conor was still humming scraps of song under his breath, working his own strength into my hands and through them into myself. At last Finbar spoke.

“I’m sorry, Sorcha. I hardly know what words to choose. One night. It is too short a time to waken our memories of this world. My mind holds so much, and I have seen—I—no, some things are best left unspoken.”

I turned to face him, and this time he met my gaze direct. I saw firelight flicker in his gray eyes, and there was doubt in them.

What is this? You can’t give up! You, of all people. What is wrong?

Still he kept his shutters down.

“You can talk to us, Finbar,” said Conor quietly. “Here, we three are linked hand in hand. We know you. We know your courage. Speak aloud of what troubles you, if you will not open your mind to us.” It was spoken gently enough, but there was an authority in his words that seemed to give Finbar no choice.

“Why Sorcha?” he said. “Why single her out for such suffering? She is innocent of any wrongdoing, incapable of an evil thought. Why should she make this sacrifice for us?”

“Because she is the strongest,” said Conor simply. “Because she can bend with the wind, and not break. Sorcha is the thread that binds us all together. Without her we are leaves in the wind, blown hither and thither at random.”

“We are strong. We are all strong.”

“In our own ways, yes. But each of you would break before this storm. Even you, for there comes a time when the path straight ahead crumbles underfoot, or is washed away by floodwaters, and then if you will not take another way you are lost. Only Sorcha can bring us home.”

“You speak in riddles,” said Finbar impatiently. “What of yourself? How can you be so calm, so accepting, when you see your sister as thin as a wraith, dressed in rags and her skin weeping with sores? I would rather die, or remain under this curse forever, than let her suffer this way for me. How can you stand back and accept this?”