The Pillars of the World

Chapter Three

Ari tried not to sigh out loud as she set her heavy baskets on the floor of Granny Gwynn’s shop and sincerely hoped Odella and the other young women from Ridgeley’s gentry families would conclude their business quickly.

Seeing the movement, Odella gave Ari a sharp look before turning back to the small, wrinkled woman standing behind the wooden counter at the back of the shop. “Do you have it, Granny?”

Granny Gwynn huffed. “Wicked girl. You wound my heart, indeed you do, to think that I’d forget to make the fancy for my pretty misses. Of course I have it. You wait there.” She disappeared behind the heavy curtain that separated the storage rooms from the front of the shop.

Odella and the others girls began whispering and giggling.

Trying to prevent it was as easy to ignore them as it was for them to ignore her, Ari waited. She should have heeded the strange feeling in the air this morning and stayed home. She should have worked in the garden or finished cleaning her cottage. She should have taken her sketchbook and colored chalks into the woods and spent the day quietly making the swift drawings that would be transformed into the woven wall hangings that provided her with some income.

But loneliness had slipped into her dreams last night, making her crave even the illusion of company. So she had rolled up the wall hanging Mistress Brigston had commissioned and the bottles of simples she had made to sell at Granny’s shop, packed her baskets into the small handcart, and made the three-mile walk to the village.

Granny Gwynn reappeared, her hands full of small items wrapped in brown waxed paper.

“Here you are, my pretty ladies. A little fancy for a little fun during the Summer Moon.”

Odella and the other girls leaned over the counter while Granny Gwynn unwrapped one of the packages. A couple of the girls gasped, then giggled behind their hands.

“Now tuck those safely away until they’re needed,” Granny Gwynn said after handing a package to each girl. She narrowed her eyes. “Where’s the last girl?”

Odella waved an impatient hand. “It doesn’t matter. What do we do with the fancy? How does it work?”

“It matters, Miss Odella,” Granny Gwynn said darkly. “Seven were asked for. Seven were made. Seven must be taken.”

“Then I’ll take the other one, too.”

Granny Gwynn shook her head. “There’s no way to tell what will happen if one is left or if two are taken by the same person.”

Odella paled a little. She glanced around the shop. A predatory look came into her eyes. “Then give the last one to Ari.” She made a come-forward motion. “Come on, Ari. It’s just a bit of fun to celebrate the first moon of summer.”

Ari studied the other girls, who were now watching her with avid interest. An inner voice whispered, Beware. Beware. They do not mean you well. The loneliness coiled around her heart, and whispered, It’s a chance to belong, even if only for a little while.

She stepped up to the counter.

“Hold out your left hand,” Granny Gwynn said.

When Ari hesitated, Granny grabbed her hand and tipped the package’s contents into her palm.

Ari hissed as a small jolt of magic shot up her left arm and stabbed her heart. A moment later, the feeling was gone. Then she looked at the fancy, and uneasiness washed through her.

Two pieces of brown-sugar candy. One was shaped like a full-bodied woman. The other was shaped like a phallus.

“Wrap them up now,” Granny Gwynn said, smiling slyly as she handed the brown waxed paper to Ari.

Ari hurriedly wrapped the fancy and would have left it on the counter if Granny hadn’t watched her closely until she tucked it into her skirt pocket.

“Now,” Granny Gwynn said, crossing her hands over her sagging belly. “The full moon rises in two days’ time. You must go out walking that night. Choose your path well because you must offer the female half of the fancy to the first male you see that night who isn’t close kin, and say, ‘With this fancy, I offer the affection of my body from the full moon to the dark. This I swear by the Lord of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon. May they never again shine upon me if I do not fulfill this promise.’ ”

Ari shivered. Not a bit of summer fun, then. Not if a promise had to be sworn in the name of those two.

“If the male accepts his piece of the fancy,” Granny Gwynn continued, “then the choice has been made. You must eat the male half of the fancy in his presence to complete the magic, and you must give him as much affection as he wishes until the dark of the moon.” She smiled slyly again. “You’ll have no trouble doing that.”

“What if we don’t want the first male we see?” Bonnie, a plump blonde, asked.

Granny gave her a hard look. “The first. If he refuses, you’re free to seek another. If he accepts . . . the magic is binding, pretty miss. Defy it, deny it, refuse it at your peril. If you do not use that fancy to draw the brightness of affection, then you’ll draw the dark feelings to you.”

The girls shuffled nervously. Even Odella looked worried.

Ari felt sick.

Granny patted Odella’s hand. “For the next two days, take a few quiet minutes for yourself before you retire and think of what you’d like in a lover. Don’t try to draw a specific man,” she warned, holding up a finger. “Just the qualities you want in the man who will be your lover from the full moon to the dark— and, perhaps, for much longer if you’re clever.”

“But—” Odella began to protest.

“The men of Ridgeley aren’t the only ones who wander the roads the night of the Summer Moon,” Granny said, grinning wickedly.

“Oooh.” Odella wiggled. Then she smiled maliciously at Ari. “I’m sure my brother Royce will have some business that evening.”

Ari felt her throat close until it hurt to swallow.

“Now be off with you,” Granny Gwynn said, shooing the other girls out the door. Then she motioned to Ari. “Back here.”

Ari picked up her baskets of simples and followed Granny Gwynn behind the curtain.

As soon as she set the baskets on the table in the center of the room, Granny Gwynn waved her aside and began to unpack them. “Good. Good. I sold the last bottle of that yesterday.” She continued commenting and muttering while she read each neat label. Finally, she stepped back, crossed her arms over her belly, and narrowed her eyes at Ari. “I’ll give you one and a half coppers for each bottle.”

Ari stared at Granny for a long moment before she found her voice. “Our agreement was three coppers a bottle.”

“That was before Squire Kenton bought a bottle for his delicate wife. Perhaps you added a little ill-wishing when you stirred that brew, eh? Because Mistress Kenton became desperately sick after she took a couple of spoonfuls. Sick enough that the physician had to be called in. And who do you think the squire raved at and threatened to bring in front of the magistrate’s court unless I paid the physician’s fee?”

“If it was taken properly, there was nothing in that simple that would have made her ill,” Ari said. Except what you may have added in order to claim it was of your own making, she added silently. If, that is, Mistress Kenton had become ill at all.

Granny Gwynn’s face reddened, as if she’d heard the thought. “One and a half coppers. That’s all you’ll get.”

An icy calm filled Ari as she quickly repacked the baskets. “Then I’ll sell them elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere?” Granny’s voice rose. “Who do you think will buy from you! No one in Ridgeley will buy a simple if they have to admit it came from you.”

“Then I’ll sell them at Wellingsford or Seahaven.”

“A full day’s coach journey there and back to reach either one, and more time to peddle your goods. You’d leave your place for so long?”

The touch of malicious knowledge in Granny’s voice made Ari look up.

Last spring, she had made arrangements with Ahern, a gruff old man who was her nearest neighbor, to have one of the men who worked in his stables tend her cow and chickens so that she could make the journey to Seahaven to sell a few of her wall hangings. The merchant she’d shown the wall hangings to had been impressed by the quality of her work and had bought them all—and had promised to look at anything else she had. Lighthearted and full of plans to sell her work for the fair price she couldn’t get from the gentry in Ridgeley, she had danced up the road after the night coach that traveled the coastal road from Seahaven to Wellingsford had let her off at the crossroads that led to Ridgeley—and to Brightwood, her home.

Then, in the early-morning light, she had found the “welcome” that had been left for her.

Her animals had been slaughtered, hacked to pieces. The cow’s head and two of the chickens had been dumped in the home well. Some of the gore had been splashed across the back of her cottage.

Ahern’s man arrived shortly after she did, took one look, and ran back to tell his master. Ahern and all of his men showed up a little while after that. The old man had walked through the cottage with her, but her warding spells had kept the inside of her home protected.

The men cleaned the well, removed the dead animals, even cleaned up the back of her cottage. Still, for weeks afterward, she went to the nearest stream each morning to bring back drinking water.

Later that year, when Ahern asked her if she was going to Seahaven again to sell her weaving, she had made excuses. She had understood the warning. The people in Ridgeley would tolerate her living outside their village on whatever scraps they chose to throw her way, but they wouldn’t tolerate her slipping the leash unless she forfeited Brightwood, the land that had been held by the women in her family since the first witch had walked the boundaries.

She couldn’t forfeit the land. It was her heritage . . . and her burden.

“All right,” Granny Gwynn said, bringing Ari back to the present. “All right. Two coppers. That’s the best you’ll get.”

Ari held out her hand.

Granny’s face darkened. Muttering, she pulled a coin pouch out of her skirt pocket. She looked like she wanted to spit on each copper before she dropped it into Ari’s hand.

Saying nothing, Ari slipped the coins into her own deep skirt pocket before she again unpacked the baskets.

When she picked up her empty baskets and pulled the curtain aside, Granny Gwynn said spitefully, “I hope that fancy brings you everything you deserve.”

Or at least no harm, Ari thought as she left the shop.

Odella and the other girls were still gathered nearby. When none of them even looked at her, Ari breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m going to try one of the paths through the woods,” Bonnie said. “If any of them are about, they won’t be on the main road.”

Another girl fanned herself with a lace hanky. Her voice quivered with excitement and fear. “Do you really think they’ll come for the Summer Moon?”

“You’ll probably end up with Eddis or Hest,” Bonnie said with a touch of malice.

“Not Hest,” the hanky waver whined. “He has spots.”

“Well,” Odella said with a sharp smile, “you know what all the boys say is the best cure for spots, don’t you?”

The girls giggled.

Dropping her baskets into the handcart, Ari left as swiftly as she could without seeming to run away.

She should have heeded the strange feel in the air.

Mistress Brigston had tried to cheat her out of the payment for the wall hanging. Having learned the hard lesson that the gentry tended to see nothing dishonorable about trying to cheat anyone but one of their own, Ari had refused to let the woman bring the wall hanging into the house “to check the colors” before she had received payment. Then there was dealing with Granny Gwynn, who was a hedge witch with just enough skill in magic to be dangerous to anyone who trusted her potions and spells, and more than enough greed to never deal fairly if she could get away with it.

So now she was on her way home with a wall hanging no one would buy, a few coppers, and an intense desire to escape before anything else happened.

She didn’t escape fast enough.

Royce, Baron Felston’s heir, was waiting for her outside the village, just beyond a slight bend in the road.

Most of the girls sighed over Royce’s trim figure and the handsome face framed by golden curls, but Ari knew the temper that lurked behind his blue eyes, the meanness of spirit that no amount of flattering words could sweeten.

Ari gave him a cool, civil nod, hoping he’d let her pass.

Wearing a satisfied grin, Royce fell into step beside her. “I hear you got a fancy for the Summer Moon. Let’s have a look at it.”

She dodged his hands, putting the cart between them. “Stay away from me.” She was so intent on watching him, she barely noticed the power beginning to rise inside her—the strength of the earth and the heat of fire.

“Why should I?” Royce sneered. “You’ve lifted your skirts for me before.” His eyes raked over her. “You were better than nothing, but not by much. A cold toss that wasn’t worth a second try. But I figure the magic in that fancy will warm you up a bit and make things interesting.”

Warm her up? Warm her up? If she were any hotter right now, she’d burn.

“Leave. Me. Alone,” she said, spacing out her words.

“As the lady wishes,” Royce said, giving her a mocking bow. Then his face hardened. “But I’m going to be riding toward the coast road that night, and I expect to meet you along the way.” He turned toward the village, then turned back and pointed a finger at her. “And if I find out you lifted your skirts for any other man before I’ve had my fill of you, you’ll regret it.”

She waited just long enough to feel sure he was really leaving. Then she grabbed the handle of her cart and hurried down the road in the opposite direction.

She managed half a mile before she had to stop. Feeling shaky and feverish, she stripped off her short cloak. “Don’t get sick now,” she said as she folded the cloak and put it in one of the baskets. “Don’t get—”

She paused, focused, felt the thrum of power waiting to be released.

“Foolish,” she muttered, stepping away from the cart. “Foolish, foolish, foolish. How many times did Mother tell you that drawing power without awareness was as dangerous for the witch as it was for the world around her?”

She closed her eyes, feeling her heart ache as if she had brushed against the bruise that had been left on it by her mother’s death two winters ago.

Taking a couple of deep breaths to steady herself, she slowly, carefully, grounded the power she had unthinkingly summoned, giving it back to the Great Mother. When she was done, she felt depleted and fiercely thirsty, but also calmer.

There was a time, her grandmother had told her, when a witch could command the power of all four branches of the Mother—earth, air, water, and fire. But something had happened over the years, and the witches’ strength had waned. For the past few generations, the women of her family had been gifted with one primary branch and a trickle of power from another. She was the first in a long, long time who had almost equal strength in the two branches of the Mother that were hers to command—earth and fire.

“But even that much power isn’t very useful when it comes to dealing with the likes of Mistress Brigston or Granny Gwynn,” she said softly as she dug into her skirt pocket and pulled out the fancy. Just enough magic in it that she didn’t dare ignore it. So, if she couldn’t ignore it, what kind of lover would she like to draw to her?

“A man who has kindness inside him as well as strength,” she told the fancy. “A man who could accept me for what I am. A man who isn’t from Ridgeley.” As I will it. . .

Ari shook her head and stuffed the fancy back into her skirt pocket. Granny Gwynn might be a hedge witch with enough strength to do a bit of mischief magic, but she, like all the other women in the family who had come before her, was a witch full and true. And a witch did not send out idle wishing.

Retrieving the handcart, she continued the walk home while thoughts and memories chased her.

Royce had begun “courting” her shortly after her fifteenth birthday. He had been the first man in Ridgeley who had treated her with courtesy, and his sweet words had seduced her into believing that he was as much in love with her as she was with him— until the night she had met him in a meadow and he had pleaded with her to make their love a physical union. Since she had been raised to believe that intimacy was a gift from the Mother, she had been willing to celebrate their love. She had gotten no pleasure from the quick, rough coupling he had seemed to enjoy. And afterward . . . Afterward he had sneeringly thanked her for giving his rod some relief—. . . and for helping him win the bet that he could have her on her back within a moon’s cycle of beginning his “courtship.”

She had crept home, ashamed and brokenhearted. Her mother and grandmother had been understanding—and never spoke aloud the sadness she knew they had felt that her first experience had left her with such bitter memories.

Taking a deep breath, Ari turned aside from those thoughts. It did no good to look back at something that had happened two years before—something that she had never allowed to happen since.

Maybe it was that feel in the air that made a budding summer day have an edge like an approaching winter storm. There was a message there, if only she could understand it. But earth and fire were the branches of the Mother that were her strength, and she couldn’t sense what the branches of water and air might have told her.

Think of something else, she told herself sternly. Your thoughts are your will, and you bring to yourself what you will.

Loneliness had brought today’s events down on her like an earthslide. Well, she would ignore it the next time it crept into her dreams. She’d been alone since her mother died a few months after Grandmother Astra. She would get used to it, wouldn’t let herself be ruled by it. She had no choice, since she was all that was left of her family.

We are witches. I’ll not deny it, Astra had told her once. Whether that’s a gift or a burden is something each must choose for herself. But, child, it’s only a word, and only you can decide what that word will mean. When you let others define you, you give up the greatest power of all.

Wise words from a strong, wise woman. But even Astra couldn’t have foreseen a time when there would be only one of them left, and that one being a seventeen-year-old girl struggling to define herself while an entire village strove to reshape and diminish her.

Willing herself not to cry, Ari looked around and spotted a hawk watching her from a nearby tree. She felt her mood shift, as it always did when she saw one of the Mother’s wild children, and she smiled for the first time that day. Raising her hand in greeting, she called out, “Blessings of the day to you, brother hawk.”

The hawk chose not to answer. But she noticed that, every time she looked back, it was still watching her.

It’s only a hawk, she thought as that feel in the air began to press in on her again. Of course it was only a hawk. Then again, it could have been a Fae Lord or Lady from Tir Alainn. It was said that each of them had another form that could be taken at will.

Tir Alainn. The Fair Land. The Otherland. The land of magic—and the home of the Fae, who were the Mother’s most powerful children.

It was better to believe the hawk was only a hawk. Despite what Odella and the other girls might think about a romantic encounter with a Fae Lord on a moonlit road, the Fae were not always kind when they dealt with humans.

Suddenly shivering, Ari hurried toward the safety of her home.

She had two days to understand the magic Granny Gwynn had set into the fancy, two days to see if there was some way to safely counter the spell. If she couldn’t she would have to abide by that spell and swear a promise that invoked the two most powerful Fae—the Lady of the Moon and the Lord of the Sun, the Lord of Fire. The Huntress . . . and the Lightbringer.