Ash sat by the hearthpit, scrubbing a dress in a tub full of water and soap. She’d been wearing it yesterday afternoon, down by the stream, practicing her elemental magic. A rock had shifted under her feet and pitched her to the ground. She’d cut her hand on a sharp stone, and her dress had gotten soiled with blood and mud. As she scrubbed it, she thought about the three dresses she had brought with her from Thridstow, and how they would be her only dresses now for a long time to come. She would no longer be visiting Blickstow for festivals, getting new clothes from the king’s dressmaker. She had a rust-colored dress, a plain blue dress, another blue dress with gold piping, and her green cloak. That was it. As for shoes, she would have to keep repairing the ones she owned. Thinking about these things made her eyes feel heavy with sadness. Her old life disappearing behind her, into the hall of memory. A new, strange life with Unweder, with her uncanny power, and with only one pair of shoes.
“You take a long time to wash clothes,” Unweder observed. He had been agitated this morning, pacing, watching her work, organizing and reorganizing the jars on his bench.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked him, for the third time that morning.
“No. I said no before, and I meant it.”
His body made lies of his words. His lithe arms were drawn close to his ribs, his shoulders hunched.
“It’s not raining.” Though the dark chill in the air promised something different.
“I don’t care about rain. I don’t want to go out today.” He paced some more.
She wrung out her dress and stood. “I’m going outside to hang this on a tree. I’ll be back to empty the tub.”
She made it halfway out the door when Unweder grasped her wrist. “Don’t come back for a little while.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I need…I need the house to myself today.”
“I’m sorry. You only had to say.” What was she going to do, out of the house all day? Walk in the woods, perhaps. Plot the whereabouts of the different elemental types. “I’ll come back for the tub.”
“No, no, never mind. I’ll do that. You go.”
She was curious, but everything Unweder did made her curious. She had to tell herself to be grateful that she had somewhere to stay and someone to guide her in her next learning journey. He would reveal himself to her eventually, she hoped.
He closed the door behind her as she walked up the front path to an elm tree with a low branch. She spread her dress on it evenly, glancing at the sky. No sunshine and no wind. She had a feeling she’d be drying it by the fire tonight. With a last glance back at the house, she headed into the woods.
It was hard to tell without the sun, but Ash guessed it was midmorning. The chorus of birdsong had died off a few hours ago, and now there were just one or two bird cries, deep and far away. She stepped lightly through the layers of leaf-fall, breathing the green smell of it, running her fingers over the smooth bark of the elm saplings. The clouds parted a little, letting in weak sunlight. She sat on a log and closed her eyes, sending her mind out searching for elementals.
The woods swarmed with them, but she tried to keep her mind quiet so they wouldn’t notice her, so she could observe them gently. She sensed them in the trees, in the rocks, in the earth, in the cool damp air. For an hour she sat there, feeling them with her thoughts, keeping herself veiled. The Earth Mother’s minions, the spark of the divine in every natural thing. Then she opened her eyes. The sun had gone behind cloud cover again, and a distant rumble told her a storm might be on its way.
She walked a little farther in, wandering in no particular direction. She had a strong inner compass and knew she’d find her way home. Every quarter mile or so she would stop and sit, observing the elemental activity around her for a long time, learning its contours. There were more elementals in areas of the woods where there were lots of saplings and new growth; fewer where dead logs and leaf-fall choked the grass. By midafternoon, when her stomach was growling for more than the currants that she’d picked off their bush, she became aware of a dead zone in the woods. At first it was simply a faint ringing in the part of her mind listening to elementals. But as she drew closer, the ringing gave way to a numbness. It made Ash think about the times she had slept on her arm, and how poking it afterward gave her a strange feeling of unfamiliarity. This numbness was there in the elemental field, yet ought not be, as though everything in the area had been put to sleep unnaturally. Curious, she followed her instincts toward it, forgetting about her inner compass, forgetting about the storm gathering beyond the woods. One foot in front of the other, listening with her mind.
The wind picked up, whipping at the strands of hair that had escaped her plait. The thunder rumbled closer. Rain started to spit.
And Ash saw where she was. She had found the edge of the dead zone, and it was about a dozen yards from Unweder’s house. She had come around in a circle.
How had she never noticed before? There were no elementals around Unweder’s house. Or if they were here, they were silent. Silenced. She looked at the sky. The clouds were bruised with holding in the deluge that was about to start. She’d been gone for hours; surely Unweder wouldn’t mind if she came back a little early. She could always ask, in any case.
So as the freezing rain started to pour, she ran around the side of the house and to the front door. Her dress was lying on the grass, strewn with leaves. She would have to get it later. She cracked open the door and said softly, “Unweder? I’m sorry, but it’s raining.”
She moved inside the dim house, closing the door behind her. The hearth was stoked, but Unweder was nowhere in sight.
“Unweder?” she said again.
No answer. A scurrying noise above her had her looking up sharply. The flick of a rat’s tail disappearing over the beam.
Unweder was definitely not here. She sat by the fire and pulled off her shoes, propping them up to dry. Then she unbraided her hair and brushed it by the fire, drying off, warming up. Wondering where Unweder was. Wondering why no elementals lived near him. Wondering…
The chest. The one she wasn’t supposed to touch. The padlock was on the floor; the latch was open.
Promise me you won’t touch that.
She looked around her, licking her lips.
Promise me you won’t touch that.
If she just flipped up the lid, had a quick look…
Promise me you won’t touch that.
But she had never promised, had she? She hadn’t said the actual words, I promise I will never look in the chest. And Unweder wasn’t around. And if she was going to stay with him, she needed some answers about what he did. Didn’t she?
Ash went to the door, looked out. Rain bucketed down. Unweder wasn’t dashing toward the house to escape it. He’d probably found a place to shelter in the woods.
The chest waited. Her hand on the rim didn’t even look like her own: It looked like the hand of a bolder, less obedient woman.
She opened the lid. It creaked softly. She glanced around again, then knelt in front of the chest and peered inside.
Her first instinct was to recoil, because the chest was full of dead animals. But there was no smell of decay, no lines of ants or maggots. The smell was almost pleasant: the warm fur of a favorite pet, slightly damp. She gingerly reached in and pulled out the body of a crow. Its head lolled to one side. Its fine skeleton was light between her fingers, its feathers gleaming and black. The residue of warmth in its body suggested it had just been killed, but she didn’t see how. Nor did she see a mark on it that would indicate how it had been killed. She placed it carefully to one side, then looked again at the tangle of slack paws and soft faces. A rat lay on top, and she pulled it out to look at it. Again, it was warm. Ash glanced up at the roof beam, where she had seen the live rat earlier. Its little face peered over the beam, whiskers twitching, looking at her.
“Sorry,” she said to it, “I hope this wasn’t a friend.”
She put her hand into the chest with her palm flat. The animals in it were definitely dead, but felt as warm as though they were living. As though they were about to draw breath again any second and shudder into life. Badgers and rabbits, swallows and skylarks. What were they for? Did they have something to do with the dead zone around Unweder’s house? Ash replaced the crow and the rat as she had found them and closed the lid, leaving the latch exactly as it had been. She sat back down beside the hearth to listen to the storm clatter overhead, but then began to grow guilty and anxious. If Unweder came back and found her here alone, after specifically telling her to leave for the day…Would he know, somehow, that she had been poking around in his things?
She climbed to her feet and went to the door again. Rain fell heavily. She wanted to take her moleskin from behind the door, but Unweder had seen her leave without it. So she went out into the soaking rain, so that she could come back later and pretend she had never done anything wrong.
Three hours later, she decided it was finally safe to come back. The storm had long since cleared, and she’d found a place to sit in weak sunshine to dry off a little. But she was cold and her skin was puckered with wet when she came home.
Unweder sat on a stool by his bench, pouring a hot mixture into his little jars. “Ah, you’re back,” he said.
“I’m soaked,” she replied.
“The fire is warm. Take your wet dress off.”
She did as he said, stripping down to her linen shift and hanging the dress over the back of a chair. She sat by the fire, stretching out her fingers. The warmth was welcome and comforting.
“Have you eaten?” he said.
“Nothing but currants since breakfast.”
“I’ll cut us some cheese and bread.”
Ash glanced at the chest. The latch was down. The padlock was closed.
He took his time cutting up the food, putting it on plates. Then he came to sit by her. They ate in silence a few moments. Ash felt her pulse thudding hard in her throat. She wanted to ask him about the numbness around his house, but was judging a way to say it that wouldn’t give away that she had been snooping.
Then he said, casually, “I know you went into my chest.”
Ash’s head snapped up, her mouth opening to deny it. But she couldn’t deny it. It was true. So instead she said, “How do you know?”
He shrugged. “I’m not in the mood to tell you.”
That’s when she realized he was angry at her. The pupil in his good eye was shrunk to a pinpoint.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
He waved away her apologies. “It’s good to know I can’t trust you. I won’t be polite about locking things from now on.”
Ash squirmed with the shame. She wished for nothing less than to disappear. “I’m so sorry,” she said again, quieter. But he didn’t respond.
The hearth wasn’t yet cold when an angel’s shout woke Willow. The figures of her sisters lay around her. Bluebell snored softly. Rose’s hip was a silhouetted hillock on the other side of the fire.
What is it, my angels?
But they gave her no words, just shouts and yelps and growling sentences of ominous babble. She closed her eyes, chasing sleep, but then she felt that tickling again, down low inside her. She hadn’t done what they said. She hadn’t taken Wylm inside her and made the child that would one day rule Thyrsland. Was it any wonder they would torment her sleep?
She had tried, boldly holding him and stroking his back.
Don’t be a baby, Willow. She had seen Ivy do it. Not once had she stroked William Dartwood’s back to get him interested. She flipped over, screwing her eyes tightly shut. A frightened virgin. That’s what she was.
Maava, one god, only god… What was it she needed so desperately to ask him? She was afraid even to put the thought into words, lest the cruel laughter start again. But there was only silence, and she ventured again to reach for her lord in her mind. I am falling in love with Wylm, she said in her mind. If this is wrong in any way, give me a sign.
She tensed against the sign coming. Two owls hooting in the dark perhaps, or a shooting star overhead. But no sign came. She waited, and still it didn’t come.
Be bold. Be bold for Maava. Quietly, she turned over, folded back her blanket. Climbed to her feet and was out the door in silent seconds.
She found her way to him in the dark. He and Eni were both sleeping. Their fire was still burning, and she could see Eni in the dark, on his back, his face in repose giving no sign that he was blind or simple. Just a beautiful, skinny boy.
Willow knelt next to Wylm, her hands in her lap. She gazed down at his face by firelight. By Maava’s light, he was gorgeous. She focused her mind as she had that other time. Wake up.
His brow furrowed in his sleep, then his eyes fluttered. Brief fear, chased by recognition.
“Willow?” he said, in a croaking voice.
She put her finger to her lips, remembering the performance she had seen Ivy give. She took his hand and placed it on her breast. Only she didn’t have breasts like Ivy’s, and the movement seemed awkward.
Wylm allowed her to rest his hand there. Then she felt his fingers flex as he closed his hand over the curve. His eyes seemed very dark. In one quick movement, he rose on his elbow and pulled her down next to him, his arm locked around her waist. Her back was pressed up against his chest.
And she realized a swelling chorus of voices was bearing down on her. The heat of his body was the only thing holding her together, because as the angel voices rushed through her, gushing up between her legs and through her stomach and then pouring out her eyes and ears, her body began to shake. Shake as though her joints might disconnect one from the other and her limbs might spin off into the dark and she might never find herself again and so she stayed in her body and burned, while Wylm’s hand moved up her leg and gathered her skirts and Wylm’s fingers gently stroked the underside curve of her buttock and Wylm’s fingers probed her gently and found her slick and wet and Wylm’s other hand grasped her breast through her dress and Wylm’s lips were on her neck and Wylm’s body pressed against hers so she could feel the hard heat of his erection and the foreign yet welcome thrill of him as he entered her body and moved so that she rolled her eyes back and her head and the angels and the voices and the exploding white-hot spangles of Maava’s love snagging on her flesh and in her throat and the slow darkness bleeding into the edges of everything…
“Willow?”
Ears ringing.
“Willow?” It was Wylm. She was lying on her back; he was bent over her, gently rubbing her face.
She opened her eyes.
“You blacked out,” he said. “You frightened me.”
She beheld his beauty in the dark. He was half undressed, his hair a mess—a glorious gorgeous mess. She reached for it, tangling her fingers. “I’m well again now,” she said, realization hard upon her. What had she done? But under the panic was a sense of certainty. Maava had led her here.
Maava had led her here, Maava had put the feelings of longing into her body, and that meant she and Wylm were meant to be joined that way. It was Maava’s will and she would serve him by bearing and raising the child as a true soldier in Maava’s righteous army.
“Willow, we really shouldn’t have—”
“It’s all right, Wylm. We won’t do it again.” She had his seed now. All was well.
“I’m sorry. I…haven’t felt the touch of a woman for…”
“You need not be sorry.” She smiled at him. “But I must go back to my bed beside the hearth.”
He nodded. She felt his eyes on her as she left. Willow pressed her hands over her stomach. Ah, she could feel it already. The spark of life, and she the mother of a trimartyr king.