“Yes, and to think those wise royal sages sitting fat in the palace say it can’t be done. ‘Delusions of the crazed’,” she mocked. “What blatherskites.”
“What did it say?” He pushed aside the twisted branches.
“The roots attacking are from a Straif, and we have to seek out the Great Nion for the cure,” she answered.
“Strah-f? Nee-uhn? And you understand all this?”
“They’re trees. Nion is an ash and Straif is the ancient name for the blackthorn.”
“So, a tree attacked your da?”
“Not just any tree, Wynn. The thorny blackthorn is tricky enough without magic. I can’t imagine what an enchanted one could do.” She paused and then recited a passage from the Grimoire,
Baneful Straif, tree of strife;
Wicked thorns cut like a knife.
Beware its roots in their menacing twist;
Beware jagged pricks from this arrow of the mist.
Wynn shook his head as if he’d missed the point.
Lia added, “All trees carry some sort of lore, ancient legends passed down. The Straif’s are mostly about pain and war. The old tribes used its tough wood to craft cudgels—special fighting clubs—and its thorns to make deadly spear points.”
Her words stopped as they neared Granda Luis and she caught the change in his gait. His knees must be flaring up, she thought, and knew the stubborn man would keep stumbling through the woods with no reprieve. She’d have to feign an excuse to stop him.
But before she could utter a word, he collapsed to the ground.
“Granda!” Lia tore through the grove to his crumpled body.
“I’ve got him.” Kelven lifted him up.
“Granda,” Luis sputtered, “Wretched … bramble,” and then passed out.
Kelven held him tight and glanced at Wynn. “Let’s each take a side, might be gentler on him that way.” Wynn positioned himself on one side and they carried Granda ahead.
Lia remained frozen to her spot. Wretched bramble? She bent down to retrieve Granda’s walking staff, peering at the ground, unable to shake the dread washing through her. She studied the thick carpet, finding only decomposing tree fall and patches of moss.
The amber orb suddenly grew bright, a golden aura emanating outward for a moment. Lia carefully lifted the staff from the leaves. The honeyed stone was knocked askew. She placed her hand on it, and her eye caught something through the glassy resin. With a deft finger, she probed under the stone into the hollow of the staff and pulled out a scroll.
“Lee,” Wynn called back.
“I’m coming.” Lia stuffed the rolled parchment within the folds of her tunic, set the amber in place, and hurried ahead.
They made it out of the coppice and found a spot between the stream and clover patch to settle. The day had waned into twilight, though the fae meadow continued to glow with its flashing lights.
“I’ll get a fire going,” Kelven said, and he scrambled away to collect wood.
Lia laid out a bedroll and Wynn settled Granda down onto it. With a long exhale, Wynn turned stormy eyes on Lia. “Have his legs ever given out like that before?”
“He has flareups all the time, swelling and pain, but I’ve never seen him collapse. Maybe he’s overdone himself. I’m sure he’s exhausted.” She refused to panic. “The usual remedies, some food when he wakes, a good night’s sleep, should do the trick.”
Her cousin’s grim look improved. “All right then, I’ll be back,” he said, and left her to tend to Granda.
Lia was soon pinching several herbs into the kettle while Kelven stoked the fire.
“What are you making?” he asked.
She met his eyes. “An infusion of Granda’s favorite. Bridewort helps the swelling and featherfew eases the pain.”
“Huh. And what’s in the linen?” Kelven pointed to a pair of bundled cloths.
“The poultices are for his knees. A blend of arnica, knitbone, and holigolde.”
He raised his brow. “You’ve really got the knack.”
A smile tugged at Lia’s mouth. She was glad she knew the healing crafts, glad she could help Granda. And glad that Kelven upholded such skills.
Wynn rushed up to the fire just then with a spear full of trout and a grin stretched across his face. “That undun, undee, oh spades, that water faery helped me. She corralled them in a cove while I speared away.”
Lia shook her head. Sometimes her cousin’s charms paid off.
She put the kettle over the flames and prepared the fish, using a salt and oil rub before frying the catch. She kept a keen eye on Granda while they ate, and when he finally stirred, she hurried to his side with a mug of the herbal infusion.
“Ah, girl, you know … just what … to do.” Granda Luis winced as Wynn helped him into a seated position. “Thank you, my boy. Lia, the Beth bark, would you fetch it from my pouch?”
Beth was the ancient name for a birch tree, Lia recalled. She jumped to his bidding and returned with the pale bark that he’d gathered that morning, along with the hot poultices. She knelt down and glanced at his walking staff lying at his side. “Granda, back in the grove where you fell, the amber stone shone for a moment.”
“That’s odd,” he muttered, his face drawn and pale. “Never lights up unless the shades are about.”
Lia’s breath caught in her throat. “Shades?”
“Couldn’t be, really,” Granda mumbled. “The Scalach’s are bound to the fog. Perhaps the amber’s grown a bit touchy from its years away from Brume.” Granda set his mug of tea down and then carefully dragged up one side of his ragged breeches.
Lia reached out to assist him and her mouth fell at the sight of his swollen knee. Then she spotted the green sores speckled along his calf. “Granda, those wounds … they’re like Da’s.”
“The bark, its pulp,” Granda Luis wheezed between clenched teeth.
“Uh, of course.” Lia willed her hands to stop trembling as she placed the pain-relieving Beth pulp around his swollen knee. She placed the hot poultice over the pulp and tied everything together with a strip of nettle cloth. She salved the tiny pustules in his calf while Granda fortified himself with another gulp of tea. In fearful silence, she moved to his other leg, slathering his knee and the green sores running up his leg with waxy salve.
After she finished, he grumbled softly, “It got me, girl. Somehow that wily Straif got me. This meadow, the fae’s magic, ’tis holding the worst of the poison at bay. But for how long, I can’t tell.”
His chilling words seeped like snowmelt inside Lia’s mind and she gulped down a surge of dread. She wanted to deny it, but knew he spoke true. She had felt something horrid lurking back in those woods, and the amber’s magic had confirmed it.
“Cunning blackthorn, wretched tree,” Lia cried. She shot looks at Wynn and Kelven, their faces both tight with worry, and then she blurted, “Granda, the only way I see it now is we split up, two of us go on to the Nion tree to find the cure—”
“No!” he roared before a fit of coughs racked his body.
Lia patted his back and Kelven lifted a water skin to his lips. Granda Luis calmed and then placed his timeworn hands over his eyes. Lia couldn’t remember ever seeing Granda weep and the sound of his hushed sobs nearly shook her apart.
“Lia girl, this journey is over, do you hear?” His voice cracked. “Best we can do is gather as many herbs as the fae will allow. I’ll not endanger your lives more than I already have. Even if I weren’t ailin’, we’d not be venturing any farther, especially not to seek out the Nion. ’Tis a wonder your Grandma escaped it.”
The young trio froze at his words. Lia’s head spun with the notion that the Nion was something to fear, a danger Grandma had to escape.
Granda Luis continued in a low, but commanding voice, “She was young then, raised by a couple of old widows tucked deep in the Bronach Mountains bordering Brume’s fog.” He wiped his muslin sleeve across his face, smudging dust-filled tears across the wrinkled ter
rain. “I met her while traveling with Lloyd. He was a doctor-in-training and claimed the old widow women, ‘mystic hags’ he called them, had the most effective treatment for the ague.
“Your grandma captivated me from the moment I saw her hanging herbs to dry, with her hair like fire, and a look in her eyes as if she held a treasure-trove of secrets. ’Twas only after we married, when she brought me to the gates o’mist, that I witnessed her gift. Your grandma could have gone by several names: seer, diviner, spirit mage.”
“Spirit mage?” Lia stumbled on her words. “Grandma spoke with the dead?”
Granda Luis looked directly into her wide eyes and smiled. “Aye, and so can you, my girl. ’Twas you the shades spoke to.”
Lia shivered in remembrance of the shades. Yes, she’d heard them, heard their awful moans, even saw their black figures, but it hadn’t dawned on her it was because she’d inherited some kind of gift.
Lia cast a glance toward Wynn, sitting wide-eyed and silent, and then to Kelven who held his focus on the fire.
“Mindspeak, another gift,” Granda continued. “Took years o’practice under the tutelage o’your grandma and the fae before I could hear any thoughts, and even then, ’twas only with the most skilled creature making up for m’slack. Yet, you had no trouble hearing the tree wyrm. And those little prophetic dreams of yours are not what you’d call a common talent.”
Lia felt short of breath, but Granda Luis continued on, now with a sense of urgency, rattling off tales until his voice waned thin. The ungilded truth was what she had always wanted, what she’d always pestered him for, but now her head felt like bursting. When Granda finally collapsed into slumber, desperation drove her from the campfire to the embrace of the meadow.
The cooler air helped clear her thoughts and she drew in deep breaths, one after another, each one easing the weight on her mind. In the short hours of twilight, Granda’s words shattered all doubt, all uncertainties about Grandma Myrna’s magic. And now her own. Grandma’s Grimoire went from a book of invaluable remedies and wondrous fables to a powerful treasure of truth. A truth Lia struggled to grasp all at once.
Wynn jogged up behind her. “Hey, Lee, you all right?”
She averted her eyes. “I just needed some air.”
“You know, you’re not alone.”
“I know you worry for Granda, too, Wynn.”
“No, you don’t understand. I mean, you’re not alone in inheriting Grandma’s gifts. Holly has visions.”
Lia’s eyes grew wide and she faced him. Wynn’s younger sister had, “Visions?”
“They started back in the spring. They were little things she’d know before they happened, when she touched one of us or something we’d held. A couple days before we got word of your da, she handed me my sword and told me I’d be going far away.”
Lia’s head spun with this added revelation. “She’s touch-scrying. There’s a few passages in the Grimoire about it. The ancient mountain tribes honored their scryers, used them to track people or foretell a warrior’s success in battle. Holly’s gift is special, yet another strange inheritance.”
They both went silent while the fae danced around them like fireflies. Then Lia added, “Hope it’s easier for her with visions. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with fate-dreams what’s real and what’s not. Like the dream I had of you a few nights ago.”
“Oh?” His brow lifted.
“It was absurd really, a vision of you trekking through a clouded forest, and you had, well, jagged white streaks in your hair. Sounds odd, I know, probably why I didn’t give it much thought.”
“White streaks, huh? Hope it was only a dream or I’m aging faster than I thought.” Wynn gave her a strained grin. “Anyway, I guess I realize now what you meant about being different, and Holly must feel the same.”
Concern etched across Wynn’s face and he jabbed his toe into the soil. A sudden pang shot through Lia for Holly. She wondered what other skills her young cousin might harbor. What else did the eleven-year-old girl hold secret, too bewildered or afraid to speak about?
“When all this is over and you get back home,” Lia said, “you tell Holly that she is not alone, not ever, and it’s high time she come for a stay with me.”
Some of the lines on his brow smoothed. He started to turn and then asked, “Do you have any idea what happened to Grandma’s parents?”
“No.” Lia shook her head. “The only mention of them is a short verse in her book that reads,”
Parents gone but never forgot,
For they leave a legacy
Of honeyed drops floating nobly,
Upon a rich velvet sea.
Wynn shook his head and shrugged, and they made their way back to the fire. Kelven had taken his bed closer to the horses, and Lia wondered what thoughts ran through his mind. She hoped he still looked at her with those soft hazel eyes and tender smile come morning.
Lia settled into her bedding, but struggled to relax under the moon hovering above. She and Holly, the only granddaughters, bore Grandma’s mysteries. Their mothers hadn’t any gifts, at least none either of them acknowledged. Perhaps the magic skipped a generation. So, what of the only grandson, Wynn? Did the fact that he was a male preclude him, or did he harbor an undiscovered skill?
Lia soaked up the warmth of the flames, wondering why she shivered in the spring-like air. She glanced at Granda’s sleeping body and murmured, “Sneaking Straif, baneful tree, somehow, someway, your venom will be overcome.”
As the chorus of snores sang around her, Lia brought out the creased scroll from within her tunic. All this time Granda’s staff harbored a secret. She unrolled the vellum and immediately recognized the writing upon it. It was the same script, the same ink, with the parchment jagged along one edge. Why had he torn it out? Why had he hidden away this page from the Grimoire?
A twinge of guilt ran within her, but she felt too compelled to stop. The firelight blazed on its surface, and she read the poetic verse:
A child of imposing grace will shine for all the land;
From moon to moon she will race,
As armies take their stand.
Across the kingdom her foe will chase,
As her soul strives to stay free,
And in the end her freedom resides
Within the great hallowed tree.
Lia read the riddle once more before she tucked it back within the lining of her tunic. For hours, she lay in silence. She worried for Da and Granda, she struggled to find meaning in the riddle, and she pondered on her newly discovered gifts. Tears of frustration streamed down her cheeks and she hid her face in her ma’s cloak, shutting out everything but the warmth and softness of its velvet lining, until sleep finally swept her away.
“Lee, wake up!” Wynn’s voice cut through her slumber.
Lia woke muzzy-headed, her eyes squinting in the dawning light.
“It’s Granda; he’s sweating pretty bad.”
She threw off her bedding and leapt up to tend to him. “Quick, Wynn, use my blade to get his breeches loose.” She handed him her seax knife and rummaged through her knapsack, tossing herb pouches hither and thither.
Wynn gripped the blade’s curved hilt and cut the fabric, careful not to graze Granda’s swollen legs. Granda Luis moaned and his arms began to flail.
“Hold him still.” Lia scooped out a heap of salve and rubbed it over the seeping eruptions. The speckled lesions had mutated into hideous sores, now identical to those found on Da. The fae’s protective magic was failing against the poison of the Straif.
Lia trembled as she prepared a strong sleeping decoction, comprised mainly of vandal root and hops. It took some time to get the hot liquid down Granda’s throat, though his face and mouth were less swollen than Da’s had been. Thank the stars for the fae’s magic. He dozed off, his breathing ragged, but strong. With Granda settled, Lia grabbed hold of her knapsack and sped off toward the horses.
“Lee, wait up! What … where are you going?” Wynn hurried behind
her.
“I’ve got to find something we can use. This meadow’s full of plants I’ve never seen before. There’s gotta be something that’ll work, something to diminish that awful poison.”
“What about that faery Granda spoke to, Ebrill?”
The duo immediately retrieved their horses from the clover patch, Wynn yelling for Kelven to watch over Granda. Kelven’s eyes met Lia’s, and for a split second, time halted. No more panic, no fear, only the warmth of his eyes.
He rushed toward her and her throat went dry. “We have to speak with the fae,” she managed to say. “Granda’s worsened.”
Kelven nodded and brushed his hand across hers. “I’ll go and keep watch over him.”
Lia and Wynn were soon amid the bright heather. “Ura,” Lia mouthed, remembering its ancient name. After reaching the same spot as before, they sat until their legs were sore and the sun crested high above. The geancanach lights blinked all around them, but the pillywiggins remained out of sight. Frustration twisted Lia’s insides until her stomach was one big knot, and Wynn paced through a layer of soil.
Perhaps their efforts were futile, the fae too busy with their own tasks to bother with them further. Maybe they’d become unwelcomed now that Granda was infected by the Straif. Had the fae shunned them? What if they turned against them? Panic started to bubble up Lia’s throat. Images of what they might shapeshift into ran through her mind.
Then a plump bumblebee hovered down and Ebrill dismounted on the blooms in front of them. Relief pooled within Lia.
“The Straif attacked Granda,” she blurted. “Please, there must be something we can gather in the meadow, something as strong as we’d find at the Nion.”
“Lia,” Ebrill boomed in her ever-loud voice. “Listen to me. The poison you fight is dark magic, a magic we fae work day and night to keep from harming our meadow. Our plants provide only a part of the remedy needed. If the tree wyrm pointed you to the Great Nion, than that is where you must go.”