Chapter Twenty-Nine

Curlew!

The word—his name—screamed in Curlew’s mind and turned him around where he stood. He peered through the rain.

Anwyn’s voice. He knew it to the core of his soul, remembered the sweetness of it twining through him when they lay together, claiming him. Had she come at last? His heart leaped impossibly, and he glanced at his aunt and uncle, who sat behind him.

“Did you hear that?”

He would far rather ask Heron, but Heron had gone off to his hut with Diera, ostensibly to speak. Curlew could only hope they were not in fact speaking.

Lark and Falcon exchanged glances, and probably words between their minds. Since Falcon’s return they had refused to be parted, and—

Wait. Words between their minds.

He knew what this meant, then, and that Anwyn’s call had sounded only for him. Emotions poured through him—gratitude, awe, and glad rejoicing. All his life he had longed for this, the miracle and intimacy of someone’s voice in his mind, the deep belonging. And aye, if he could hear her, then truly she belonged to him and he to her forever—no end.

But where was she? How far? And why did he glean fear from her as well as longing? Aye, the longing he shared, by the Green Man’s blood he did. Was she somewhere he might find her?

“Curlew, what is it?” Falcon asked, but Curlew barely heard.

Come, meet us. Another voice, one he felt he knew but could not at this moment identify, one of those that so frequently sighed like a wind through Sherwood.

“I must go,” he tossed over his shoulder, and moved off even as Lark began to protest.

He stopped only to gather his bow and arrows, without which he seldom went anywhere, and to glance at the door of Heron’s hut. Assaulted by the driving rain, it stood firmly shut and revealed no crack of light.

Come.

He abandoned Heron to his fate and followed the call.

Could he lose his way in Sherwood, even in the dark? Surely not now, for he tracked Anwyn’s awareness as he might a beacon. Glimmers of light seemed to flash and dance in his mind. The rain crashed down with its own rhythm and music. Secret things moved along with him and memories—not just of him and Anwyn together—stirred in his mind, strange things full of grief and magic.

None of that held him. When he reached her now he meant to never let her go.

Nay, lord, for are the two of you not destined to be together? still another voice asked.

Someone strode beside him, a large man only dimly seen and mostly made of shadow. Like Curlew, he wore a bow and a quiver across his back, along with a great sheepskin cloak.

Curlew did not need to see him. He would know that rumble anywhere. “Grandfather Sparrow.”

Aye, lord, and honored as ever to walk at your side.

“’Tis I who should feel honored, Grandfather, not you. For, there is scarcely a more ordinary man in all England than I.”

Sparrow laughed, a deep chuckle that seemed to rustle the trees. Is that what you think? But are you not lord of all Sherwood?

“Am I?” Curlew returned.

’Twas said of you, before your birth, that you would be the most important person ever born in Sherwood. Surely, by now, you know why.

Curlew shrugged, still not entirely comfortable with that implication. “It was said. Yet, Grandfather, I have not yet lived up to that prediction.”

Well, humility is a fine thing. Sparrow grinned to himself. And you were ever a humble man, my lord.

“Why do you keep on calling me that?”

You are about to take the place that was always meant to be yours, in service to Sherwood. Surely that warrants some respect. Or is it truly Sherwood that stands in service to you?

What was the man on about? Curlew could but wonder. Man or spirit—for Curlew could not mistake this presence. Sparrow had been gone since before Curlew’s birth. Madness, all of it.

Your grandmother and I have watched you all these years of your growing.

Aye, and seen little enough to inspire them, Curlew would be bound. He had done his duty, tried to prove kind to others, and waited somehow for his life to begin. As it had now, with the arrival of Anwyn.

This way. Sparrow turned him with a touch on the arm. The man felt real. Aye, and so, Heron said, had the Lady when he lay with her.

Awe struck him suddenly at the depth of Sherwood’s magic. How he longed to lose himself in it.

Not yet, Sparrow told him. There is work to be done. But aye, that reward awaits us always at the end.

“And she? Anwyn? Does she wait also?”

She has been waiting for you a terrible, long time. Women and men, my lord, make two halves of the whole, and no one likes living half a life. I go now to meet my wife even as you go to meet yours. And Heron, bless him, also has business to finish. She will choose him, this time.

“She?”

Diera. She made her decision last time, and chose the leader, the headman. This time, out of love and justice, she has chosen the priest.

“I am not sure I understand.”

Nay? Do you believe, my lord, in the eternal nature of life? That the essence of what we are—not the flesh but the spirit—cannot be destroyed?

Curlew wished the man would stop calling him my lord, yet he returned patiently, “I must, since I have encountered countless spirits here in Sherwood, and since I find myself conversing now with you.”

It is as my wife told you in the forest. It should not be impossible to believe that having put on one suit of clothes for a time a spirit may lay it aside and don another.

“That is not impossible to believe,” Curlew could but agree.

Sparrow told him comfortably, So Diera and Heron have donned new clothes to finish old business.

“As have I,” Curlew said with both wonder and trepidation. He and Anwyn—whose clothing had they laid down? Dared he believe the truth that whispered ever more strongly to him?

Even though he did not really speak to his grandfather, Sparrow answered. Have faith in the depth of the magic, my lord. It exists for you.

Curlew stopped walking and directed a hard look at his companion. Sparrow seemed to waver through the rain, a product of mere belief. Conviction suddenly flooded Curlew; he dared not doubt.

Your lady, my lord. Sparrow inclined his head. She is there, just ahead. Go to her.

The rain stilled abruptly. With its passing went the man who had paced by Curlew’s side. He stood filled with wonder for one breathless moment while the trees dropped their moisture all around him, like an echo of the rain.

Believe.

The very trees, the air of Sherwood seemed to breathe the word. It pounded up through him from the ground, wrapped him round, and tingled in his awareness.

Ahead of him appeared a vision, aglow in the darkness. From head to toe she shed radiance toward which his heart leaped. He knew her, yet he did not.

Ah, by all the holiness of Sherwood, he knew her.

Her mind reached for him even before her feet carried her forward at a run. He moved toward her also, and years seemed to fly away with every step, so that time tumbled about them like the water dripping from the trees.

Like tears.

She thudded into his arms at last, the way an arrow finds its target. He took hold of her like memory, like relief, and his mind—or was it hers?—cried words of claiming.

My love, at last, at last. I have waited so long. Let us never be parted again.