Strange Grace

  Her voice fades, and Genny wiggles to be let down. Mairwen bends to set her on her stockinged feet, and the girl stumbles and rushes to her father, who’s come with her mother cradled in his arms in order that both might see the scarlet leaves crowning the Bone Tree and know soon Liza Bowen will heal, because blood leaves are proof that the bargain can be re-formed with a new saint’s run. Mairwen wishes she believed it. Something is wrong, so maybe everything is wrong. She looks for her mother, and finds the witch standing opposite in the crowd. Aderyn’s mouth softens when she sees her daughter, and she beckons.

  It’s time for the first ritual to begin, and together the two witches go into the herd of horses and choose a healthy one. He’s a dark roan, still young and strong, but with a son of his own to carry his qualities on so they won’t lose the power from the herd. Aderyn turns him over to the rest of the women, who brush him to a shine and braid his mane and tail with red ribbons, put a wreath of thistle and holly around the beast’s neck. Then the men anoint the horse’s brow with a blessed salve, and each boy who might run approaches. One by one they grip the wreath, hard enough the pricking holly and rough thistle draw blood, and whisper their name into the horse’s ear.

  Mairwen gnashes her teeth. Her mother winds their hands together and murmurs, “You have a story for me, little bird. There’s blood on your sleeve and a wail in your eyes.”

  “Not for here,” she replies, leaning her arm into her mother’s. The devil is an old god of the forest, her mother would whisper when she told the story only to Mairwen. That was the first line of the Grace witches’ private version. He was bold and powerful, beautiful and dangerous, but he loved the first Grace witch, and it was from that love the bargain blossomed. This valley is made on love, little bird. Find love. Seek it, always. That is where our power resides.

  “Morning, Mair,” Haf whispers, coming up behind. Mair squeezes her mother’s hand, then lets go and turns to her friend.

  Haf’s height barely surpasses Mairwen’s shoulder, but the braided crown of her hair gives her a few more inches. Haf is nearly a year older than Mairwen, and engaged to Ifan Pugh, but most pin her the more youthful of the two girls because of her easy smile and tendency to forget what she’s doing. But she never forgets things she’s said or promised. She loves Mairwen for being brave, and because Haf understands that Mair’s distraction and hunger for other things have nothing to do with any insufficiency of Haf’s. That simple self-assurance made Mair fall in love with her right back. It was Mair who brokered the engagement with Ifan Pugh, eight years their elder, because he’d been too nervous to approach Haf. That alone turned Mair in his favor, for who but the truly besotted would be more afraid of Haf than of her?

  Mairwen puts her arm around her friend’s waist, weaving them even closer.

  “Will it be Rhun?” Haf asks very quietly. Mair looks toward the boys lined up to whisper their names to the horse. There he is with Arthur, leaning against his shoulder like a comrade, like a boy with no care in the world despite the early Moon, despite the monster this morning, while Arthur seethes silently, jaw working. Beside him are Per Argall and the Parry cousins, and Bevan Heir: all boys between fifteen and twenty, offering themselves up to the town. But everyone knows who will be sent into the forest.

  “He’s the best,” Mair whispers. Without even a goodbye word, she whirls away from Haf and strides south toward home.

  She kicks at tall grass as she goes, taking satisfaction from the tiny golden seeds that scatter explosively. There must be a reason this happened, there must be a cause, and surely—surely—that cause is not John Upjohn. If something went wrong with his run, why did the bargain last these three years at all, and not simply collapse upon itself immediately after?

  Mair grits her teeth and lines up her questions for Aderyn Grace.

  Do you know what’s wrong? Mustn’t you, because you’re the Grace witch?

  Why can’t I go inside, really? What is the magic in my heart or in my bones? I’m half saint!

  Why did a monster try to escape?

  How can I save Rhun Sayer?

  Hardly noticing as she crosses the stone wall, barely checking her speed as she careens down the hill toward the Grace house, Mairwen seethes and sighs through her teeth, hating this uncertainty. Even Arthur knows what his role is today: apply to be the saint, with all the other potential runners. Haf knows, and all the villagers know: Ready the valley for a bonfire celebration tonight, with a feast and dancing and the ritual throwing of charms into the fire. Women and girls will bake and sweep. Men and young boys move tables and benches, spit a pig, carry heavy casks of beer.

  Only Mairwen doesn’t know. She’s not the Grace witch yet, but more than just a girl.

  The forest calls her. The Bone Tree calls her.

  Why isn’t she allowed to answer? Why isn’t she allowed to run?

  I would run for him, Arthur had said. Well, so would Mairwen. And she’d be sneakier and determined.

  How could it possibly matter to the magic to sacrifice a boy instead of a girl?

  But maybe the devil cares.

  Mairwen slams through the short wooden gate into her mother’s yard, and stops when she hears a startled grunt to her left.

  It’s John Upjohn, crouched inside their fence, half hidden beside the gooseberry bushes. He’s twenty-one and lean, with watery green eyes and thin blond hair he keeps braided in a tail. The impression of being no more than a ghost is so familiar to Mair it’s hard for her to believe the people who remember him lively and bold, before his run.

  His left arm is tucked into a pocket specially sewn to the side of his coat to easily hold the stump of his wrist.

  “Mairwen,” he says, attempting normalcy.

  “Oh, John!” She flings herself down beside him, but not touching him—she always waits for him to make contact. “Are you well? You weren’t at the pasture with your mother.”

  John tilts his head, which is the nearest he comes to expressing unease. “Is there blood on the Bone Tree?”

  “Yes.” Mair does her best to keep her voice even, not let him hear her fury and confusion.

  His wince is mighty, but lacking surprise.

  “Will you tell me, finally, what happened to you in the forest?” she asks.

  “I did not do this, Mairwen Grace,” he answers with more ferocity than she’s ever heard.

  “Nor did I say you did,” she snaps back, leaping to her feet. “This is new, John, an early Slaughter Moon for the first time in two hundred years. You can’t be upset we want to know why, and you’re the last person to be in the forest!”

  The saint shuts his eyes and drags his hand down his face. It falls off his chin, turns to a fist, and slams into the grass beside his hip. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

  Carefully, Mairwen kneels. She breaks her own rule and touches his knee. “I’ve been a safe place for you for years, me and my mother. I don’t mean for that to end today. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  They pose in silence for a few breaths, both inwardly focused. She thinks of the times he’s brought his nightmares to her door, of holding tightly to his shoulders as he shakes. “Can you tell me anything, John?” Mair finally asks, soft as she can. “Did you see the devil? What is he like? How did you lose your hand? What is inside that forest? Is it beautiful?”

  “Beautiful!” He frowns. “No.”

  It’s a no that reverberates through all her questions. Mair wants to argue, but it’s John Upjohn, the last saint, and she won’t. Instead she turns to lean against the fence, where gooseberry brambles tangle in her hair.

  “So much of it I only remember in my nightmares,” he confesses.

  Without looking at him, she asks, “Why have you stayed, if it’s so hard? Not for me, surely.”

  “Thinking of leaving is even worse. I don’t know how the other surviving saints left, even with the lord’s help and money. A part of me never left that forest, not just my . . . not just . . . but at least here I’m . .
. close to it. I have to stay close.”

  “Oh, John,” she whispers, putting her shoulder against his.

  “I shouldn’t hide today. That will make things worse.”

  “You be yourself. You’ve done nothing wrong. I won’t let anybody hurt you.”

  “I believe you,” he whispers.

  “I want to go into the forest,” she whispers back. “To find out what changed. John, I feel like this is . . . an opportunity. An opening in the world that only I might fit through.”

  “No.” John Upjohn pushes up onto one knee and grasps her shoulder. “Mairwen Grace,” he says firmly, making her name an invocation. “Do not go inside. For me. You asked me to stay here three years ago, and I’m asking you to do the same now.” Sweat beads at his hairline, though the morning is cold.

  “I can handle it, John,” she says resentfully.

  His fingers tighten on her shoulder. “But you shouldn’t have to. Nobody should have to.”

  “Rhun will have to. Why should he handle it alone?”

  John pauses, and his eyes lower. Mair struggles to regulate her breathing, so she seems less upset, less desperate. “I’m sorry, Mairwen.”

  Frustration tightens her muscles and Mair has to dig her fingers into the grass, ripping fistfuls up by the roots.

  • • •

  ADERYN COMES ONCE THE MORNING ritual is done, pauses at the sight of her daughter and the last saint leaning together in the yard. Mairwen leaps up and drags Aderyn inside, to the cool shade of their kitchen. “Mother, a deer charged out of the forest this morning, monstrous and misshapen. Arthur killed it and we rolled it back into the forest.”

  Lines pinch between Aderyn’s dark brows. “That has not happened before.”

  “Something is wrong.”

  “There is nothing to do but let the Slaughter Moon run its course.”

  “Nothing! But we’re witches.”

  “And we guard the bargain.”

  “But shouldn’t we investigate? What if the devil is . . . is hurt? Or what if the first Grace’s heart cannot bear the weight of the bargain any longer? Their love lasted two hundred years, which is a very long time.”

  “Not ever after,” Aderyn said with a dry smile. “The magic promises the bargain will last so long as we send our saint to run.”

  “Every seven years,” Mairwen cries, then quickly lowers her voice, glancing to the kitchen window. “It’s only been three since John escaped.”

  Aderyn holds her daughter’s shoulders, studying Mairwen for a long moment, until Mairwen licks her lips and her fingers twist into her skirt. Aderyn says, “But John is not the first saint to run back out of the forest, and this is new.”

  “So it must be something else. Something has changed! Don’t we need to know what? Why can’t I go inside? I’m strong. I’m fast. I—I’m not as strong and fast as Rhun, but I’m cunning.” Mair knows she’s pleading with her mother. Aderyn draws her toward the hearth, where they kneel together on the wide, dark stone.

  “You cannot go inside, little bird. Of all people. Not because you’re a girl, but because of the blood in your veins. I know you long for the forest. I know it calls you. But answering is not worth the peril. Your heart would be so much at risk.”

  Mairwen sinks, putting her cheek to her mother’s thigh. She closes her eyes and listens—listens deeply—to the pitter-patter of her heart, quick and loud. Aderyn strokes the brambling curls as best one can. “Isn’t it worth the risk?” Mairwen whispers.

  “You’re a Grace witch, not a saint. I’ve told you, we go inside and we do not return. Our hearts are tied to that Bone Tree, just as the heart of the youngest Grace sister was. Wait until you have lived a full life.”

  “Rhun hasn’t.”

  “That is part of the sacrifice.”

  Making a fist in her mother’s skirt, Mairwen says, “It is hard enough to think of Rhun dying if it gives us the seven years we’re owed. But if it is only three years again? Or less? We cannot be sure his run will be enough, if we don’t know what changed.”

  Her mother continues to pet Mair’s head. “Have faith, and love, little bird. In the bargain, in our traditions. One cycle out of pace with the rest does not mean it all is worthless. You are strong, Mairwen, and what you do means something to this town. Show them how to be, how you can lead them after me. Not only for Three Graces, but for Rhun Sayer. Show him you will be strong when he runs.”

  “I love him. Will that be enough to save him?” Mair clutches her mother’s knees, for how can she say such a thing when her mother lost her lover to the forest seventeen years ago?

  But Aderyn teases at Mair’s curls and says, “That boy loves widely and well. If love can protect anybody, it will protect Rhun Sayer.”

  “Too widely?” Mairwen unbends, panicked. “Too well?”

  “Little bird, I’m not sure there is any such thing.”

  • • •

  HAF LEWIS AND HER SISTER Bree arrive to bake for the bonfire that night, sending Aderyn on her way to check in with Rhos and the baby, back at the Priddy house. Mair is glad to take her frustration out on dough, and her bread comes out tough.

  Haf and her fifteen-year-old sister keep up a dialogue between them, enough the kitchen doesn’t overwhelm with tension; they tease each other and compete to make the finest pinched pastries. Their fingers move fast, and their smiles match. The girls look everything of sisters, smooth black hair and round faces, bright eyes, though Bree’s are a surprising green and her skin a rosy tan, evidence of three generations the Lewises have lived and married in Three Graces.

  When Bree’s best friend, Emma Parry, rushes in to drop off a bowl of sweet meat and grab more elderflower honey for the Pugh sisters, she knocks into Mair hard enough Mair retaliates by throwing a handful of flour and snaps, “Watch yourself!”

  The powder scatters in Emma’s blond hair, and she purses her lips, putting fists on her slight hips. “You should find a chance to go by the square, Mairwen,” Emma says with false kindness. “The boys are building their bonfire, and I think Arthur Couch might be having a better time of it than Rhun Sayer.”

  “Oh,” Bree says, “you should bless them, Mair, you should.”

  “She’s probably blessed Rhun Sayer enough,” Emma adds with a giggle.

  Bree gasps, but Mairwen ignores it, striding to the pot on the fire to slop her spoon through the reducing gooseberry sauce. Emma says, “I mean . . .”

  “I know what you mean,” Mair says coldly. Truthfully, she likes being accused of such things. It’s good for Rhun’s reputation.

  The girl dashes out of the cottage and Haf says, “She’s only excited.”

  Mair’s hand stills the spoon in the green sauce. A few more minutes will be enough. She needs to finish rolling out the dough. Or she can leave this to burn, to turn to sticky, ruined innards, and go back out to the pasture, be alone where she can’t foul the town’s customs with her thorns. This is too important, isn’t it, to push at until it breaks?

  She turns to face Haf and her sister, who stand beside the worn kitchen table with a pile of perfectly shaped pastries ready to be carried to the Priddy ovens. Bree’s chin is down, her small fingers pinching dough around a spoonful of the candied venison Emma just left. Bree looks up at Mairwen from beneath her black brows, then glances quickly down again, biting her lip.

  Mairwen hefts the pot of gooseberries off the fire and sets it on the hearth to cool. The stone is old and blue-gray, a single heavy boulder carved rectangular like an old pagan standing stone tipped onto its side. Possibly that is exactly its origin. She wipes her hands on her apron. “Do you think all this preparation matters? Shouldn’t we be doing something else? Trying to find out what caused the change? What if it’s something we all did?”

  Haf tilts her head to consider. Not a wisp of her braided crown slips out of place. Afternoon sunlight streams through the western windows, highlighting clusters of drying herbs that dangle from the rafters, dull green and purple and
yellow, and the limewashed walls are as bright as ever. It smells of tangy gooseberries and flour, fire and hot stone. Haf finally says, “Don’t we have to go on with the bargain no matter what caused this change? I’ve never been sick in my life, nor lost a little brother or sister as a babe.”

  Bree’s fingers twitch, ruining the arc of her pastry. Her braids are messy, falling to pieces, because for some unknowable younger sister’s reason, she won’t let Haf do the braiding for her. “Our grandma used to tell us stories about plague when we were bad,” she says. “That your—your skin rots off and you get boils that weep blood until you cough up your own insides. She said if we didn’t behave we’d be made to leave Three Graces and die of it.”

  “Oh, Bree,” Haf says, exasperated.

  Grimacing, Mairwen says, “That’s terrible.” She can’t help imagining it, how horrible the smell would be, and the fear. “But I know why we have the bargain, why we send our saint into the forest. I understand the—the sacrifice part. Or I understand how it’s supposed to work. But how can we do everything traditional, everything the same as always, when last time we did it all just like this and the bargain only lasted three years? How can our rituals matter? These pastries and our bonfire celebration matter, or tomorrow’s blessing shirt? It seems useless to me if we don’t know it will work again.”

  “What else can we do but try to fix it?” Haf says.

  Mairwen scoffs. “We don’t know which part is broken!”

  But it’s Bree who murmurs, “My mom says John’s hand is the only different thing.”

  “That we know of,” Mair says darkly, thinking of the monstrous deer. “And by the rules of the bargain, he did nothing wrong by surviving and leaving his hand behind.”