Minstrel of the Water Willow (3 page)

He wondered if
she looked out her window, if she saw him, but did not dare
check.

She hobbled
about, often leaving a helping of broth and fresh bread on the bank
in the evenings.

His father
caught him there late one evening eating, and exploded. Coming down
from the mountain to visit with his son, to find the cottage cold
and in disrepair, he knew he would find him in only one place. He
dragged his son to a council of elders and they threatened to
forcibly remove him to the fortress to the north if he did not hark
to their words.

“Madness,
Kell!” his father shouted after, poking a mighty blaze in the
hearth that had been unlit for weeks. “You are young; you have a
life, an amazing talent, and the pick of the prettiest women. You
deserve to be happy!”

Kell stared at
him. “I am aware, father, of what I allow to slip away, but I
cannot change it.”

“Why not? She
is aging! Why do you go on with this foolishness?”

“I love
her.”

“There is
nothing to hold onto, son,” his father whispered from his heart.
“You deserve to be loved in return.”

“She loves
me.”

His father
reared back. “You have spoken to her? Have you been seen? You have
touched her?”

“None of
those, father.”

“Then how do
you know she loves you?”

“She listens
to my music.”

A father
stared at a son, not understanding. Shaking his head, he murmured,
“Your mother wants to have a grandchild one day, Kell. Will you
disappoint her?”

Hands clenched
into fists at his back. “Erin will die sooner than your ‘one day’
and then it may be different for me.”

“I hope so,
for your sake. Has she at least seen you to know who it is she
loves?”

Kell closed
his eyes. Of course not.

“Madness,
Kell.”

Yes, it
was.

Thereafter he
stayed away from the willow and Erin. He took the time to fix his
own cottage and work his own land. He travelled east and spoke with
other Fay, gave rousing performances, and even received a few
marriage proposals. The prettiest, as his father intimated. When it
appeared as if he would end up wed without his consent, he
absconded and returned to his home.

He had doomed
himself, he realised.

No one
compared to beautiful Erin of yesteryear.

The years
passed.

Erin was
seventy, and he returned to check on her fitfully. It became a
duty, something he needed to see to completion. He did not play for
her any more. His heart became a stone as he waited for the ending
of his obsession. Only once did he see her gaze across into the
willow, but she did no more than that. She no doubt understood also
the time for them had long passed. Perhaps she merely took comfort
now from knowing her guardian continued to watch over her, if not
with as much passion as before.

He wondered
what lay in her soul. Disappointment in a life wasted? Or
gratefulness for the companionship during her lonely years?

As he had, she
had allowed life to slip by.

His father
died in a snowstorm soon after and his mother was heartbroken. He
brought her back to her original home and together they worked the
land. His mother, though, had lost her sparkle. Without his father,
she was sad. He realised how much his parents had loved each
other.

His mother and
his father had made a good life, together. He still waited on that
kind of togetherness.

Year after
year, his mother lost her strength and her will to go on. He
understood she had given up on life and slowly allowed herself to
fade away.

As Erin
was.

Year by year
she grew ever slower, frailer, and had no more to give. She too
awaited death.

Soon he would
be truly alone.

Ancient gifts
have meaning in the future

F
ine
lines attested to her life.

Once she was a
happy child, a glorious girl, then a radiant mother-to-be, but she
lost her smile when she lost her baby.

Because she
chose loneliness, so did he. He loved her from the moment he saw
her and understood, after he understood about her swift years, he
would wait until she had passed before searching for his own
happiness.

Closing his
eyes, he saw again Erin with sun-kissed skin and pink lips. How he
wished he had waded across the river that day, despite his
youth.

How he wished
he could do so now and that every step could remove the years
between until they were matched in time. Just once he would have
liked to kiss her.

He waited
until Erin rose from her water gathering to return to her cottage
before heading back to his. His mother was ill; he could not
maintain a full day’s presence under the willow.

“Kell, it is
time,” she whispered when he entered her chamber. “Come, sit with
me.”

Sitting on the
bed, he took her hand, smoothing his thumb over her fragile skin.
He had no words.

“You are a
beautiful man, son,” she murmured, watching him lovingly. “A
creature of the sun moving in the shadows. So beautiful, so bright.
Much like your father, too. Stubborn.” She touched his face. “I
wish your Erin was Fay. You and she are much alike also. Such
lovely hair, honey and cream, both of you. Your eyes are the mist
of life, while hers is the earth.”

He understood
something then. “That time you went to help her with the birth and
her healing after …”

“I told her
about you, yes”

Kell closed
his eyes. His mother tugged at his hand and he opened them
swiftly.

“Kell, bring
me that chest.” She indicated the ornate wooden chest on the
dresser opposite. As a healer, she kept her special herbs in
there.

He brought it
to her. “Do not strain yourself.”

“Hush.” She
opened it and carefully sifted through the small pouches filled
with dried leaves and flowers until she found an ancient leather
one. A rounded arrow had been etched into the hide. “Here.”

He took it
from her. “What am I to do with this?”

“It gifts
life, Kell.”

He blinked at
her, not understanding.

“When she
gives up, give her that. She will recover.”

“Mother, I
cannot choose life for her after she chooses death.”

“Son, give it
to her. Trust me.”

“And what if I
give it to you instead?”

His mother
laughed. “It does not work on Fay!” Smiling, she touched his face
again. “An old medicine woman gave it to me two hundred years ago,
a human with an extraordinary gift, because she was half Fay also.
Her mother and her father somehow crossed the boundaries time had
laid between their two races. Trust me. Promise me.”

He promised,
but believed he was humouring her.

In the morning
his mother was dead.

Mourning, he
saw to her final wishes before giving thought to Erin. He was now
almost alone in the forest, for only one Fay family still chose the
tree realm as home. They were further north, however.

All other Fay
had chosen to head for high ground.

Many days had
passed since he last checked on Erin. His loneliness alone forced
him to the duty.

Chapter 8

A minstrel
cannot be parted from a muse

E
rin did
not come down to the river and he was anxious.

Perhaps she
had marked his absence and did not see the need. Returning for his
lyre, he then played soft notes, but realised only the river heard
him. There was no movement on the path. He played on, one dirge
after the other, to tell her without words he was in mourning and
it was why he was away.

Unconsciously,
the gloriously sad music reached into his soul and pried apart the
barriers he set in place to guard against unstoppable tears.

He wept then,
for his mother, for his father, for Erin, for her lost child, for
himself.

When Erin did
not venture from her cottage for three days in succession, he
decided to go to her. Perhaps she could no longer move. Maybe she
was eternally silent. He needed to know with certainty. His heart
was not his own until he knew where it lay.

Wading across
the expanse placid now in summer, he clambered up the gentle hill
to her home. He dared not feel.

There was no
sound, other than the clacking hens in the yard. The trailing roses
were saddening in their neglect.

He could not
enter her space unannounced and uninvited.

The right was
not his.

Instinct bade
him lift the wine skin attached to his waist, uncork it and pour
the contents of his mother’s strange pouch into the liquid depths.
After closing it and shaking thoroughly, he placed it on the rail
near the door.

Knocking
briefly, he swung down and ran back to the river to swiftly return
to the shadows of the willow.

He could not
see her cottage, but held his breath nonetheless. His heart, he
discovered, now beat an odd rhythm, something akin to
expectation.

He did not
know whether she was alive or dead … and yet his heart knew
something he could not admit to himself.

Eventually he
saw her. He hunkered unmoving.

She stood at
the top of the rise staring directly at him. She shook as if in
fever and leaned heavily on her walking stick. Her silver hair was
untidy and she seemed beyond exhaustion. Breath nearly deserted him
when she lifted his skin to her lips to drink. Red liquid trickled
over her chin to splash onto her wrinkled tunic.

Finishing the
skin, she carefully corked it and laid it upon the path. Wobbling,
she shifted around until she vanished over the rise.

Still he did
not move.

She was
alive.

Was he pleased
or disappointed?

The next
morning he was in place early, without the lyre, without food and
drink of any kind. He was there merely to check on her. If she came
down to the water, he would return the next day. If she did not
appear, he would not return again to the water willow. The ending
approached.

Erin came down
and there was a spring in her step. She barely made use of her
walking stick. Scooping water, she did not look at the willow.

His heart
threatened to burst from its confines.

What had his
mother said?

Give it to her
when she gives up.

Erin had
surrendered … until she heard his footsteps on her porch. Perhaps
final curiosity roused her from her deathbed, a spark that lasted
long enough for her to find the wineskin. Perhaps she thought it
contained the means to simply slip painlessly away. Given the
dirges she must have heard days before, she understood death was on
his mind also.

She will
recover.

What will she
recover? The will to go on living? Surely death would be the kinder
state now?

He returned
the next day as he had promised himself, and noticed she dispensed
entirely with the walking stick, ambling down unaided and with more
certain tread than he had seen in her for years.

His entire
being held its collective breath.

On the third
morning, Erin crouched at the basin where she filled her urn and
took her time in the task. She scooped slowly, as if giving him
opportunity to study her. He watched, noting her movements appeared
easier, more casual. Studying her hands, he realised the age spots
had faded and they seemed less wrinkled. His gaze flew to her face.
Was it his imagination, or were there fewer wrinkles there as
well?

Her hair
appeared fair rather than silver.

The fourth
morning, she stretched mightily at the head of the path. Her
posture was decidedly younger. She did not come down, dancing
instead away. Dancing?

Kell paced in
the shallows under the willow.

She will
recover.

Years? Time?
Life?

The next day
Erin strode boldly down to the river in bare feet and kicked at the
water. She laughed. It was the first time she had laughed since her
daughter was stillborn. She clapped her hands, and twirled.

Kell bolted
upright to stare through the fronds. It was the Erin of his dreams.
The woman with sun-kissed skin and arresting freckles, her tawny
eyes alight, her lips full and pink.

His mother’s
potion had reversed the effects of aging.

How long would
it last?

How far would
it go?

What if this
day and this night was the only time available?

“You think too
much, Kell,” her husky voice sounded. “Feel. Know.
Act
.”

By all
legends, she sounded as fey as his kind were. Had the potion gifted
her the nuances missing in a human?

Kell stepped
from the shadows. He had only a moment to register her astonished
and sweeping gaze as she saw him for the first time, before his
arms enclosed his dream and his lips touched a softness he had
obsessed about.

“Erin. At
last.”

Her laughter
and her love wrapped around him. “My minstrel, how glorious you
are. You are even more than my imagination revealed to me.”

Music soared
as the minstrel and his muse entered the same time … finally
together.

The End

Books by
Elaina J Davidson

Lore of
Arcana

The Infinity
Mantle

The Kinfire
Tree

The Drowned
Throne

The Dragon
Circle

Secret
Remedies

Lore of
Reaume

The Kallanon
Scales

The Nemisin
Star

The Sleeper
Sword

The Dreamer
Stones

Realm
Walker

Lore of Reaume
Omnibus

Lore of
Sanctum

The Nemesis
Blade