Discovery

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

She left him lying there in the forest. He could have left her alone and still been alive. He had no right to turn her over to her enemies, people who would kill her on sight, other than for gold. The same people who had killed the only three people who had offered her friendship and more. No, she didn’t feel sorry for him.

Hannah walked away with determination, anger driving her on. It was not the fault of the man back there; it was the people who offered the reward. They would pay. Someday, they would pay.

Again she slept outside, cold and lonely. Her food was gone. She’d eaten already what little bit she’d managed to take. But when she looked up, she noticed the trees grew taller, and on some, the bark rippled, and looked grainy, like the giant tree Evelyn worked in. The wood underneath the bark was ruddy, almost red. Hannah pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders and closed her eyes. Instead of the restless sleep of the previous night, she went right to sleep and didn’t wake until the sun was well above the horizon.

Later she would remember the day before and the man she had killed, not with sorrow or fear, but with regret. She hadn’t wished to do it. She hadn’t thrown the knife until he made it clear he didn’t care if others killed her as long as he got his gold. But for now, she pushed it aside as if it never happened.

The trees grew taller, and the underbrush thinned. Eventually, she spied a single floating pink dot bobbing and bouncing on currents of air. A smile touched her lips. She was close and could relax. She walked on and found another dot drifting from the same direction. The trees were massive, the forest quiet, and she felt subdued and calm. Her future lay with a strange woman who worked inside a tree. The idea made her smile.

A few more pink dots drifted past, and she touched one with a finger and watched it poof out of existence. Her ears searched for the tiny tinkling of the minute explosion, but none came. She blew on another and watched it sail faster and higher in response.

The trees around her grew to massive proportions, but she pulled herself back to the present and watched for danger, despite the feelings of peace and quiet. The dots grew more numerous and then she saw the tree with the inverted V.

She paused at the doorway, hearing nothing from inside. Pulling the curtain aside, she found the hollow center of the tree much as she remembered it, but not entirely the same. One side of the area now held no tables or shelves, as it had on the earlier visit. Now a sleeping cot stood against that wall, three dresses her size laid carefully on it.

A fire pit surrounded by flat rocks was nearby. An iron frame held a small iron pot on a swing-arm for cooking. Food filled the shelves beside the cot. Her stomach growled in response.

Evelyn had known she would return or had another girl the same size in mind. A black bird flew inside, landed on a table and eyed Hannah, twisting and turning its head as it watched her.

She made a shooing motion with her hands. The bird jumped back and cocked its head. It shouted, “Hannah. Hannah.”

“You know my name?”

“I’ll come back to my workspace when I can. Make yourself at home but do not touch my things. Some are dangerous. Dangerous.”

The voice sounded familiar yet odd. It was Evelyn’s voice but distorted. “So you are a messenger?”

“Hannah. Hannah.”

“Tell me again.”

“Hannah,” it shouted, then the bird flew off, but she was sure it was Evelyn sending her a message. How did she know I’d be back?

The cot in the corner drew her. Not the cot as much as the three dresses. Hannah spun, looking for something reflective and found a polished square of flat metal. Lifting it, she drew back in horror at the fuzzy reflection staring back at her. Not only had the ink colored her hair, but drips had molted her forehead. The tops of her ears were black, and the soot she had been smearing on her face had run down and left blotches of black on white skin.

Her long beautiful blonde hair that she had always been so proud of stood up on end, the cut jagged and crude. She ran a hand through it and found a twig embedded. After picking that out, she bent and ruffled her fingers through her hair as she watched bits of dead leaves, straw, and sand sprinkle down.

Then she cried. For the first time, she felt safe enough to cry for the three men who had briefly been in her life. She cried for the relief of being safe. She cried in anger and pounded fists on her knees in frustration.

Evelyn’s bird had said she would return when she could. What did that mean? How long was she talking about? Hannah understood not touching her things, but she could look. Nothing the bird said was about not looking. But first, she needed to eat.

No, she needed to clean herself up after chopping off her hair, dying it with ink, smearing soot in it, and sleeping in the forest for three nights. She had not crossed a stream or seen a lake in the direction she’d come, and she didn’t remember one in the direction she and Sir James had arrived, but she hadn’t been looking for one back then.

Hannah threw the curtain open and stepped into the afternoon sunshine that filtered through the tops of the trees. The ground sloped to one side. A faint trail went that way, and she followed it to find a creek narrow enough that she could step over it, shallow enough to wet her feet, but downstream were rocks piled on the shore and drew her attention.

The rocks were the size of the heads of trolls, each placed beside the next carefully, the spaces between filled with smaller rocks and gravel. The result was a pool, three steps across in any direction and knee deep. The water flowed in from the top and out the other end, refreshing it with clean water and draining any other.

Her shirt came off and then the rest. When she was ready to wade in, she paused. The scabbard and knife were still on her back. She slipped out of it, but instead of tossing it with the rest of her things, she pulled the knife and placed it on a rock beside the pond, the handle where she would grab it if she needed to throw it.

The water was not as cold as she expected. She had no soap, but let the water soften the grit and grime before wiping head to foot with her hands. Foul colored water flowed off her into the pool and darkened the water. Her upper arms still had soot coloring them, but after several tries at cleaning them off most of it was gone. Her hair felt cleaner than in days, but she rinsed it, again and again, trying to get as much ink to soak off as possible.

Maybe Evelyn had soap at the tree. She decided she was as clean as she was going to get, for now, but another bath was in order, maybe tomorrow. She scooped her things into her arms and walked naked to the tree, remembering Evelyn’s words that others stayed away and nobody in her lifetime had ever been there before Hannah wandered in while chasing the origin of the pink dots.

She chose the blue dress. It was simple, pale blue trimmed in darker blue around the neck and hem. It hid her knife, but the round neckline provided the room for her hand to slip inside. Once her hair grew long again, it would help hide the knife, but for now, she was satisfied.

Outside the doorway grew another tree, so large she probably couldn’t reach all the way around, but it was probably about the width of a man. She went to it and stopped at the right distance. Her hand went to her neck and pulled the knife. A single step forward as she threw gave it speed and power. It struck, tip first, near the center but a little low. It would have hit in the stomach which would probably kill eventually, but was not her target. She did it again. And again.

The knife turned too much, or not enough part of the time, and then it clattered to the ground. In those instances, Hannah played a mental game where she died. On the first day, she died once for every two times the imaginary evil Treeman she fought died. The knife spun, and the craftsmanship caused it to strike properly two out of three times. That meant if she defended herself three times she would survive two. She had already used up one of those lives. The bark showed the number of times she’d defeated the Treeman.

Hannah decided five for five would be her next goal. Then she would take another step back and find a second distance to throw, just like the blacksmith told her. She would learn to throw five for five from there.

Tired, she entered the tree again and explored as she ate an apple. She looked but didn’t touch. Some items held writing, but she couldn’t read. Others were obvious. Rows of bottles with wooden stoppers lined a shelf, many of them filled with liquids of all colors and consistencies. Closed jars held plants, ground into shavings. A bowl held tiny white rocks, or what looked like rocks, but might be anything or nothing. She wanted to touch them but restrained herself.

On one table she found a quill, ink, and blank paper. A tall stool sat beside it, just the right height for writing. Evelyn had said to touch nothing, but that couldn’t apply to writing. She unstopped a bottle of dark blue ink and checked the nib on the quill. Soon she had printed an entire page of A’s, each row neater and more precise than the one above.

She had learned A’s from William at the King’s Palace in her father’s workshop. It was the only letter she knew. The first letter on the bottle containing the ink was new to her. I. A simple down stroke. She made one, thinking that writing may be easier than she expected.

The line grew too long. She made another, too short. The next wavered and bent. Hannah shifted the quill to her other hand and shook her right. Then she tried again, making one slash after another. They became reasonably straight, but when she sat back to observe her work, the entire line slanted downward instead of flowing straight across the page.

She changed dresses because she could. The green dress caught the light just right. Maybe green would become her new favorite color. The stack of firewood drew her attention. To one side kindling had been split, and flint and iron lay beside it. The sorceress had thought of everything. She built a small fire, not for warmth, but for the company. The smoke rose in the middle of the tree and filtered out above the curtain.

She still had enough light in the day to practice with her knife, and she had already killed her imaginary opponent with throw after throw. Each time she missed she analyzed why and made minute corrections. Then she went back inside and sat to work on her penmanship again.

The page was blank. She sorted through the pages, searched her bed, and anywhere else, but she was certain she had left the full page of A’s and the I’s right on top. Not wishing to waste valuable paper, she nevertheless started printing at the top of a clean sheet. She made a row of A’s and another of I’s, then learned to make the next letter on the bottle, N. When satisfied, and her hand cramping, she placed the bottle on top of the paper and cleaned the nib of the quill.

She followed the pink dots to their source, a small metal vat of a foul smelling liquid. Inside the rim of the cauldron floated thousands of pink dots, a few rising high enough to escape over the lip and float free. Hannah gave the smallest sniff and found herself dizzy. Do not touch OR sniff the sorceress’ things.

Looking at the position of the sun, she realized the day was almost over, and Evelyn wouldn’t arrive today. Perhaps not the following day either. The message from her had sounded faintly ominous. Still, she would sleep warm, safe, and cleaner than in days. She put wood on a small fire and went back to practice writing again and solved the mystery of her previous attempt. The writing had dried and faded, still faintly visible on the paper, even as she watched it disappear. Soon it would be gone.

Quill in hand, Hannah practiced drawing the next letter on the bottle, the letter K. She could only pronounce and repeat the sounds of A, but printing them would make the learning easier. She made a row of K symbols, keeping it straight and the letters the same size, although, they tended to get larger at the end of the line.

When darkness fell, she sat and ate a handful of berries and gnawed on hard bread sprinkled with odd spices. She carried a strip of jerky to her sleeping mat and used her blanket to cover her. There were ample candles, but Hannah had learned to sleep early and rise before the sun. Candles were for rich people.

The following day she again practiced throwing the knife at Treeman, as well as pulling it from the scabbard and throwing. She hit him four times in a row, but never five. She washed in the pool again around mid-day with a bar of heavy soap and wore the brown dress after drying off. The brown looked good on her and maybe it should become her new favorite color instead of green. Or Blue. A deer had wandered close, and she stood still, trying to draw it closer, but it bolted and left her laughing at the expression it wore when it spotted her.

The day passed slowly. After all the excitement of the last days, she wished for more to do. The third day passed slowly. The letters on the paper with the disappearing ink faded away in half a day or less. So did the ink. The quill now touched the bottom of the well with every dip. The nib had been cut so many times that the quill grew so short it barely fit her hand.

On the fourth day the sorceress, Evelyn, entered just before dark.