The Dark Mirror (30 page)

“He followed the white-shawled woman up the stream and into the forest.” Wid took up the story as Erip leaned back in his chair and closed
his eyes. “What happened between them that night is not suitable for an old fellow like me to be telling an impressionable young woman like you, Tuala. Suffice it to say that it left Conn a different man. Next morning he wandered back home, and instead of settling in to his job of brewing, and getting ready for his wedding, all he could do was stand in his doorway gazing out into the forest and
dreaming of finding Amna again. Day and night he stood there, and not a drop of ale did he brew from Maiden Dance to high summer. Each time the Shining One reached her fullness he’d slip away under the hornbeams, and when he came back in the morning his face would be wan and worn, and his eyes full of a wild delight that was close to madness, as if he’d tasted something whose rarity and wonder were
such that he’d die from the craving of it.”

“They all told him,” Erip said, “his mother, his old grandfather, his sweetheart in tears, the elders of the settlement. It was plain to them he’d been enchanted by a woman of the Good Folk, and he must break the spell or die of it. But Conn wouldn’t listen. Each full moon he’d have his night of ecstasy, and in between, those who loved him watched him
fade away with yearning until he was no more than a mad-eyed puppet of skin and bones. What did Amna want of him? Nobody knew. Others had glimpsed her there by the pond, the whiteness of the shawl eclipsed by the pearly fineness of her skin, the deep shadows of night never as dark as her lovely hair. Others had had the sense to drop their gaze and walk on past. Not Conn.”

“What happened?” asked
Tuala, thinking how foolish men were to allow themselves to be trapped thus; surely Conn should have recognized how his life was being destroyed and simply have told Amna no.

“It’s a sad tale,” Wid said. “His family tried to intervene. One full moon, they tricked Conn and bound him, so he couldn’t go to meet her. They thought that by interrupting the pattern they might break the spell and bring
him to his senses. That night, folk said they heard Amna’s cries out in the forest, cries that curdled the blood. That was not the calling of a young girl for her absent lover, but the baying of a wild animal for its prey.”

“And was Conn saved?”

Erip shook his head. “You don’t meddle lightly with the Good Folk. One such as Broichan could do it, perhaps, but not simple folk like these. Conn cursed
them all through the night, wrestling against his bonds, and after that he barred his house to them. He waited until the Shining One was full again and he went out to meet his love. The next morning his folk found Conn facedown in the pool, stone dead. They thought he’d drowned himself until they turned him over. He was white as a sheet, drained of blood. The marks of her teeth were on him.”

Tuala shuddered. “That’s a horrible story.” Horrible, and not useful at all; such a tale had nothing to do with her. “What about the other one, the owl-wife?”

Wid regarded her gravely. “Along much the same lines,” he said. “A man drawn into the woods, this time by what seemed a white owl, a rare and beautiful creature. She became a woman by day, and consented to be his wife provided he respected
her difference and did not pursue her when it was her time to change. A happier tale, for a while at least. She bore him daughters; he did not waste away from desire, only became dissatisfied with what he had, wanting the comfort of his wife’s warmth in his arms at night while he slept. Surely, he began to think, that was not too much to ask. In time his wish to make her human, which she could
never be, led him to follow her into the forest under a full moon. He saw the wondrous moment of her changing, and on that night he lost her forever. This man did not die as Conn did. He roams the dark paths under the oaks, eternally crying out to the wife who will never come back to him.”

There was a silence. Tuala was in no doubt of what the connection was between these tales. Still, try as
she might, she could not make the link between them and the household’s sudden coolness toward her. After all, everyone knew she was a child of the forest, had known it from the moment she first came to Pitnochie. And yet they had welcomed her. They had smiled and told her stories and treated her as a friend.

“What is it, lass?” Erip’s hoarse voice was full of kindness, and all at once Tuala
was on the verge of weeping.

“Fidich,” she whispered. “And Ferat and the men at arms . . . They’re shutting me out. I’m not part of things at Pitnochie anymore. Fidich said I can’t go and see Brenna and the children. And Brenna told me the men are worried because of those tales, Amna and the owl-wife. But that doesn’t
make sense. Why would they be scared of me now if they never were before? I’d
never hurt the children, they should know that—” Now she really was crying.

Wid leaned forward, proffering a square of linen. “Do what we’ve taught you to do,” he said calmly. “Think it through. The tales concern men seduced by women of the Good Folk, men sucked in by a power so strong they cannot resist it, not even when they are individuals known for great common sense, as Conn was.”

Tuala
thought as hard as she could. It didn’t seem to help much.

“You ask yourself,” Erip said, his fingers gently stroking the cat, “why everyone seems to have changed. I do feel bound to point out that Wid and I have not changed; we are, I think, beyond being afflicted by this particular phenomenon. But your mind must take another tack here, child. Perhaps it is something else that has changed.”

Tuala looked at him for a long moment. “You mean me? This has to do with me changing, growing up? But—” She fell silent again, recognizing that this was indeed what he meant. Now that she thought about it, the cooling of the household’s attitude to her did date from the time when her body had begun to alter, rounding here and hollowing there, giving her the form and rhythms of a woman. As a child,
it seemed she had been acceptable to Pitnochie, for all her difference. She had been treated with kindness, even affection. Now those who had been friends were tiptoeing around her as if she were in some way dangerous. Surely they did not believe that, as a woman, she was the same kind of creature as Amna of the White Shawl? “You must be wrong,” she said flatly. “Amna was of unearthly beauty, the
sort of woman who drives men out of their minds. The sort of woman who exists only in stories. Nobody could think I would . . .” This was just silly. She could hardly believe they were having such a conversation.

“Try looking in your mirror, lass,” said Wid. “What’s there now will be there a hundredfold next winter, and a thousandfold the one after. The men have seen it and they’re afraid. The
women have more common sense, but they’ll be wary all the same. It’s sad but true; you’re in your fourteenth year now, and your path from this point on will have this shadow over it, however hard you try to be one of us.”

Tuala was lost for words. Surely this could not be true. She was no great beauty, she had no interest at all in men and the kinds of things men and women did in the privacy
of the bedchamber. The whole idea of Ferat and
Fidich and the others thinking of her in such a way made her feel sick. She did not want to entertain the least notion that this could be the truth. “What about you?” she challenged. “You’re still my friends. You haven’t changed. What about Broichan? He never changes. This can’t be the explanation.”

Erip began to cough; this time there was blood
on the hand he clapped over his mouth. It took some time for the paroxysm to pass. At length the old man settled again. “As I said,” his voice was a thread, “we are perhaps too old, beyond such foolishness. Or maybe it is the case that we fell in love with you when you were knee-high and bursting with questions, and that that is the way we still see you: Bridei’s little treasure, a rare Midwinter
gift. As for Broichan, his vision is a very particular one. No doubt he assessed you fully from the first, and continually weighs up the opportunities and the dangers you represent.”

Tuala nodded. She could remember every word of what Broichan had told her, long ago, that time when he sent her away. There was no doubt he had seen her as a threat from the first. “What can I do?” she asked them.

The two old men regarded her in silence, their eyes full of kindness, their mouths grim. “Wait awhile and be patient,” said Wid. “You’ve a difficult time ahead.”

“Be ready for change,” Erip added. “You’ll need to be brave, Tuala.”

“It would be all right if Bridei would come home.” Her voice was very small; she had not planned to say this aloud, but it came out despite her.

Wid opened his mouth
to speak; she saw Erip shake his head as if to silence his friend and then Mist, growing restless, jumped from the old man’s lap and stalked off toward the kitchen. As if at a summons, the three dogs arose from their sleep beneath the table and suddenly the hall was no longer quiet.

“Loneliness can be hard to bear,” Wid said, rising to his feet. “A good friend is the most precious gift in the
world, Tuala. That’s a lesson I’ve no need to teach either you or Bridei. Now, let’s fetch this old man some soup, shall we? He’s starting to resemble a scarecrow, and we can’t have that. I thought I saw Ferat with ham bones before; the smell’s definitely promising.”

THE WINTER PASSED
and the days grew appreciably longer,
but Bone Mother did little to release her relentless grip on the land. Ice crusted the ponds; snow blanketed Broichan’s house under the oaks. The men grumbled
on their way to watch and an array of clothing steamed before the kitchen fire, filling the house with a pungent odor. The dogs were reluctant to venture out; Mist spent most of her time in Erip’s lap before the fire or, later in the season,
curled up on his bed in the crook of his bent knees. For a time came when the old scholar no longer had the strength to rise from his pallet, to venture forth into the household and make pretense that he would soon be better. They put him in Bridei’s room; Wid kept vigil, feeding Erip sips of water or measured mouthfuls of Broichan’s latest potion, wiping his brow, telling him tales as if he
were an ailing child. Mara burned aromatic herbs near the doorway and bore away the stained linen. Tuala sought to help and found herself barred from the chamber. Mara had taken control; it was on her say-so that folk came and went now, and she had decreed that too many visitors would only weaken the old man. Wid, struggling with his own grief and exhaustion, had not the strength to argue, but he
let Tuala in once or twice when the housekeeper was otherwise occupied. Erip’s hands were so fragile now that the fingers felt like twigs, and his voice was a faint whisper. Tuala thought she saw a new kind of light in his eyes, a brightness that looked, already, beyond the mortal world and into another full of peace and possibility. It was as if his mind conjured a great new tale of which he only
waited to begin the telling. She held his hand and swallowed her tears, and when Mara returned she slipped away like a shadow.

She made polite requests for admittance, pointing out that she was Erip’s friend, that he had asked for her, that she could make herself useful.

“You’re not required, Tuala,” Mara would say.

“Off you go, lass,” Ferat would tell her, the tone friendly enough, the look
in his eye somewhere between impatience and unease. He, at least, seemed to feel a little guilt at the betrayal of someone who had been a loved child, a friend; all the same, his discomfort at her presence was clear enough.

Toward the end she was reduced to pleading with Mara. “Please. He’s an old friend. Please don’t shut me out.”

“Erip’s a friend to all of us,” Mara said. “You’re not needed
here. Go on, and take your creature with you,” and she made to push Mist off the bed, but Mist fastened tooth and claw into Mara’s fingers, and was left where she crouched among Erip’s mounded coverlets. Erip himself was too weak now to raise a protest, and Wid was dozing in a chair, worn out from the long watch he kept. In silence, Tuala retreated.

For a little she sat alone in her small chamber,
staring at the wall. This
was wrong; it was so wrong there didn’t seem to be any learning at all to be gleaned from it. How could they not let her be there? How could they not let her say good-bye? She was one of them, reared among them, welcomed to their household and guided to knowledge by that same old man who now lay dying under the roof that had sheltered them both. A curse on Amna of the
White Shawl. A pox on the owl-wife. That was just foolishness, and had nothing at all to do with her.

Suddenly Tuala was possessed with the need for action. Seizing her warm cloak, thrusting her feet into her heavy boots, she headed off outdoors. The chill clutched painfully at her lungs the moment she stepped from the kitchen; the air was like ice on her skin. But she had to get away, as far
away as she could from Mara and Ferat and Fidich, from Uven and Cinioch, from the suspicious eyes of all those who had once seemed friends. She would not ask to take Blaze out; she did not want to hear another blank refusal. She would walk. She would walk all the way to the Vale of the Fallen, and there she would demand some answers.