1My childhood may have been strange but not in comparison to that of the great stories I grew up hearing. The folk of our small dust covered village raised me after finding me half wild and starved in the forest. The Forest of Sevenwaters was a fortress in itself and it was commonly known that no true enemy of the family could enter.
This was explanation enough for Miran. The laundress of our village took me in without a second thought. To any that asked, she said that she had always wanted a child and this was the Gods answer to here prayer. I was plenty old to speak, yet I did not. Miran pondered at how I would count things in the dirt and when one of the elder men stayed by the fire late into the night telling stories, I was always there at his feet. My eyes were fastened on the man as he told great stories of the Fair Folk. It seemed that I could not get enough of their stories.
As with everyone in the village, work must be found for me. I found my talent was with healing. I watched in amazement the first time that Grian, our healer, came to our little home. Miran had burnt herself on a scalding pot and the burn had festered to a painful boil. Grian gently washed the wound and took a small sharp knife and leaked the fluid-filled mass into a bowl. He took a sponge that he had soaked in special herbs and dripped water onto the open sore. When Miran wanted to wrap it back in a cloth he shook his head and told her it needed the air in order to heal and to let it dry completely before wrapping it.
As he packed his bag to leave, I motioned to Miran that I wanted to go with him. She understand, as she always did, what I wanted and nodded her permission. Moments after leaving our home there I was scrambling to catch up with him. He looked at me quizzically. "Did you have a request of me, little one."
I nodded.
"Well…ask then, I don't have all day." He chided. He was a short man, with a grey nest of hair on his head and a small bush of hair on his chin. His dark grey eyes seemed to sparkle, as if he knew a joke that others had yet to catch on to. He dressed like a monk, in coarse brown netting material over a brown under gown. Like most of the villagers, he had no shoes on his feet. The forest offered more protection from the heat and cold, leaving only a short while during the year where one must cloth their feet.
I shook my head. I had heard many people speak before and could understand them quite well, but in the past 5 years I had never found use for such verbal exchange. I could communicate quite well by shrugging and pointing and gesturing. Besides, many of those who spoke in our village did not think about their words and wasted the effort on things that were better off not said.
The drunks and angry husbands yelled. The wives cursed and raged. The town officials yelled out to entice others to agree with them. To me, this was all a loud waste. Why could people not just sit quietly the way that Miran and I did in the evenings in our little cottage? What was the use of speaking when so much more could be said with silence?
Grian stopped and stood looking down at me. I knew I must look like a shamble. Although Miran did the best that she could to cloth me and keep me looking tidy I was always small and thin. My dark hair was long a stringy and constantly needing to be combed. My blue eyes were big in my pale face. I looked to most like a Halfling- some fairfolk leftover. I did not look quite normal.
Grian cleared his throat and placed a hand on the spindly grey beard at the base of his mouth.
"Do you want to come with me?" He asked me slowly.
I nodded.
"Do you want to learn from me?" He asked. His grey eyes watched my face very closely. I swallowed, afraid that by breathing or reacting wrong, He would assume I did not want to come after all.
I nodded firmly, setting my jaw to show that I was serious.
"Well," He said thoughtfully. "I think that you must be able to speak, just a little, to be of any use to me. And from what I hear, you have not spoken a single word in the five summers you have been with Murin. "
I did not know how to reply. Sometimes, not using words to communicate could be tricky. I wanted to tell him that I did not need words. But how to do that…
I lifted my hands and motioned from myself to him to show that I would follow him. I motioned to the heavy pack on his shoulder and lifted my hands up to my right shoulder to explain that I would carry it for him and then I mimicked walking to show that he could go anywhere and I would follow.
He shook his head firmly. "No. In my work, you must be able to sooth the sick. How will you tell a screaming woman who is giving birth that she needs to turn on her side when her eyes are screwed shut and she is clinging to the bed in agony? You need to have words, little lass."
And with that he walked away.
Tears filled my blue eyes and I raced back into our home. Miran was waiting by the door, as if she could sense my sorrow before I had even made it home. I ran into her arms and hid my face in her shawl.
Miran clucked softly to herself and led me into the house. She wasted no time setting out a cup of hot spice tea and setting back onto a chair. She pulled me into her lap and rocked me softly as tears streamed down my face.
I had been turned away by many of the town's folk before. They did not trust me. I did not have answers to their questions about where I came from and they did not trust the unknown. The children in the village had never been kind to me with the exception of one young girl, Fayleen. Fayleen was kindness incarnate. She could never be cruel to any living thing. She was sweet to me from the first day when she seen me wandering out past the hillside and run back to tell Miran.
Not everyone accepted me. And Miran was already a question in our village. She was a widow. Her husband had been killed years before when he had gone out with the Army to escort Lord Colum on a peace mission. They had been betrayed and all of his loyal men had been slaughtered. To this day, no one knew who had betrayed the Lord of Sevenwaters but it was commonly known that the men that died that day were heroes.
Miran had been offered for many times. One of the most notorious suitors was the Butcher. He was well liked by the village and it had brought about hard feelings from others when she had turned him away. Aaron, the butcher, was not as cruel as the gossiping villagers. His love for Miran continued into the years and when she took in the wandering changeling child, he made sure to supply her and the child with meat throughout the year.
The village did not approve but there had formed a friendship between Miran, Aaron, and myself. We were quite like a family. Miran named me Tieve, for the hillside on which she found me. I had been hidden deep within a berry bush. Both her and I had torn the skin on nearly every part of our body in the fight to free me.
I had been between two and three years old at the time, according to Miran's guess. It had not been love at first site. I had tried to flea the house many times in those first few days. The only thing that seemed to calm me was a down mattress. I tore the side seam and crawled in amongst the feathers.
"You must have been cold." Miran had explained.
Something in that did not ring true to me, but I had no memory from before coming to the village and even that night was a blur. I could not remember my reason for doing it.
"Tieve, child…" She said now. With the hem of the table cloth, she wiped away the tears from my face.
The way she held me and rocked me was a closeness that had been our thing from my first week in her home. Miran could not get me to calm down and finally she had grabbed hold of me and held me on her lap in the rocker. She held me close as I fought and scratched and she told me the story of the young maiden. Her man had been taken by the fairfolk. In order to get him back, she was told she had to hold on to him. The fairfolk woman had turned her lover into all sorts of unimaginable creatures, but still the woman had held on. She had not given up. Her hands had been torn apart but she did not let go. In the end, the woman won her man's freedom.
While Miran softly told the story, there was no telling if I could understand her. I continued to fight. Finally, drained from fighting I had fallen asleep in her arms. Over the next few weeks, whenever I would seem out of control and flighty, Miran would take me up into her lap and tell a story, not letting me down until I was asleep. To her surprise, after a few weeks I came to her, arms open, at the end of the night, wanting into her lap. She found that I enjoyed the closeness and so did she.
In that moment of rejection I felt pain that I had not felt before. When the villagers had not accepted me I was too young to be hurt. And as I had grown, I just thought of it as the way that things were supposed to be. But Grian had always been kind to me. I had not expected him to turn me away.
Miran sat her chin on the top of my head and said, "What did he say that upset you so?"
I turned my body in her lap so that I could use my hands to explain. I motioned to her that he wanted me to speak.
She did not look surprised. Her blue eyes seemed knowing. She nodded for me to continue.
I bit my lip and opened my hands and closed them, showing the gesture for speak again. Then I put my hands over my lips. I cannot do it.
" You cannot speak?" Miran said, her eyes suspicious.
Frantically, my eyes met hers. Of coarse I cannot, I thought. If I could I would have by now.
"I have always been of the opinion that you would speak when you decided that the time was right." Miran replied, hugging my gently. Her kind eyes watched as I started to cry again.
I cannot!, I thought. My heart ached. Did she think I did not want to speak to her? Did she really believe that I was just too lazy to learn.
She turned her head towards the fireplace and looked at the fire.
"Tieve, you are my joy. I will love you wither you ever utter a sound but I must tell you that I want more for you than silence. I want you to be able to tell someone how you feel, instead of locking it inside yourself until you feel out of control."
I thought about this. I had never tried to speak. I had never felt the need to make sounds or noise. Only once, when my friend Fayleen had been singing to me while we picked apples did I ever want to make sounds. Her voice was sweet and melodic over the fields and I wanted more than anything to be able to do that. But I had been to afraid to make the sounds.
Now, in the quiet of our little house I wanted to try. I stood up and straightened my skirts. I set my feet, clenched my fists and opened my mouth. Pushing air at the back of my throat I made a "huh" sound.
Miran's eyes widened. Excitement transformed her face and made the corner of her eyes wrinkle.
"You can do it, Tieve. Just focus on one word and try to make the sounds that I make when I say that word."
I tried to focus on one word but all of the words that I knew rushed into my head. I looked over at the bed. Setting atop a thin blanket was a doll made of down feathers. Seeing how much I loved the feathers, Miran had wound them together to make a doll.
"eh…." No, that sound wasn't right. I moved moved my lips, blew air through my teeth, finding the "Ffff" sound.
"Ffff….eehhh…." I said. The sounds coming from my own mouth astonished me. I had the ability to speak, I just had to figure out the sounds.
"Fe..v….th….eh..rrr…" I sounded out the rest of the sounds until an almost recognizable word was accomplished.
Miran needed no more than that.
"Feather!" She cried with a grin of pleasure. "Oh, my smart little lass! Feather! Of course that would be your first word. You have always loved them. I should have named you feather!" She laughed.
I smiled with pleasure.
"Now, Tieve, you just point to what you want to say when you need help sounding out the words. We will have you talking in a matter of days, see if we don't."
And Miran was correct. Within a few hours I was saying words without much assistance and within a few days I could tell people what I wanted, even if it was slow progress. At eight years old, I still had plenty of time to learn.
A few days later, Grian came to check on Miran's burn. It was almost as good as new. He took the bindings off and told her that she would no longer need to wrap it.
"Keep the wound clean and let the air finish healing it." He advised. He then turned from his spot in the kitchen and looked to where I was standing, brushing out ash from the fireplace.
"How are you today, Tieve?" He asked with a smile.
I set my broom aside and Miran and I caught eyes. She had a smile in her eyes as she nodded to me. You are ready.
"I am w..ell" I answered slowly but surely.
Grian lunged to his feet, his face lighting up.
"I knew there was something different about you!" He said, striding to the fireplace and lifting me into the air and spinning me around in delight.
I laughed out loud. It was a much softer sound than the laughter shared between Grian and Miran but it was my sound.
We laughed and talked for hours that evening and Grian invited me to work with him.
"I had always intended to let you come with me. "He explained.
"You simply had to learn to speak. I knew you could do it. I was hoping that turning you down would be just the thing to entice you to learn. And I'll be damned if it could have worked any better!"
Miran's eyes crinkled in disapproval at the healer's foul language. He was a single man, though and allowances must be made for the men that did not have a fine woman's guiding hand.
From that moment on, I was a healer in training. Grian showed me the herbs that could heal and hurt. He took me deep into the forest to the clearing by the big house. There he showed me the little purple flowers that could ease a sick stomach and the many different uses of the unique mushrooms that grew beside the still lake. The strongest plant we found by far was the dream-wreath. It could put a man into a deep slumber. It was found in the roots of a water plant. The plant itself was a common remedy for many types of emotional aches. Men could easily become addicted to its ability to soften their emotions when rage or lust was involved.
But Grian explained that it was the root that was the most valuable. For that root could safely put a man or woman to sleep during any kind of cutting. This was extremely useful for men who returned with arrow wounds. Many times the arrow would become imbedded in bone, or it would have taken too long for the men to find a surgeon before the arrow was removed and the tissue would grow tight around it. Once this happened, nothing could be done but to take a sharp little knife and cut the flesh and muscle and sinew away from the wood until the metal tip could be retrieved. This could be the difference between a scar and losing a limb.
The secret of this particular herb was kept quiet between the healers of our home. There was not much of it in the lake but it was important and well protected.
I loved to learn and soon my most important job was the gathering of herbs near the big house by the lake. This was the home of the Lords of Sevenwaters. Some of my favorite tales were about a great healer from this home. Sorcha was her name.
Lady Sorcha was a young girl, not much older than I was when her brothers had been turned to swans by an evil sorceress. Only through her faith and silence and perseverance had they been saved. The brothers had come home. All but one.
The story was always known to be true because Sorcha's twin brother. He had returned with one arm still a swan's wing. He had left society and only returned on very special occasions. I had never seen him but I was fascinated by the idea that I could someday meet him and touch the feathers along his arm. I loved the feeling of feathers.
It was here, by the lake when I first learned the story of my past. It was many years after my training began. I was now a young woman and no longer just an apprentice but a healer in my own right. It happened like this.
I was sitting by the edge with Fayleen. In a rare mood, I had invited her to come with me to gather herbs. Fayleen would not gather the sweet-smelling medicines but instead would lay on a big rock by the water and let the sun soak into her golden hair.
"Why do you think the swans don't come here anymore?" Fayleen asked.
"I would guess it because of the curse." I answered. I leaned closer to the edge to see a little frog stir in the mud and dart off into darker water.
"But the sorceress has been gone for so long. And this place was ancestral to the beautiful birds. I have never even seen a swan. My father says that they came every year to this place since his childhood until the time when the children of Sevenwaters disappeared. Then, they all left for a few years and returned. But one day, only a few days before the children were reunited with their father, the Swans left. Some say that the sorceress killed them all."
My heart felt cold. Suddenly I felt as if I could not breathe. All of those Swans. They could not all be dead! Surely there were more. Surely there were small ones that had grown and would come back some day.
"They probably found a safer place to nest. If the brothers were with them and then suddenly turned to humans, they probably scared the poor dears half to death." I replied.
Fayleen sighed and rolled over on her side to watch me.
"I don't think so." She answered simply.
Before I had much time to think on this, I caught a glimpse of something in the lake. Towards the middle of the water, in a small clutch of plants, something shined.
"Do you see that?"I asked.
Fayleen did not seem to be paying attention as I waded into the water. I was a fairly decent swimmer. Being raised around so many lakes, you were taught to swim as a precaution almost immediately. No one wanted to hear that their child had gotten too close to the water and drowned all for lack of knowledge of how to kick their feet and float.
As I neared the center I could see the shining object. It was bottle. A glass bottle was corked and floating in the weeds. I reached out to grab it, intending to swim back with it to shore when the world around me changed.
The difference could be felt more than seen. The air grew thinner. The hot sun was brighter. The wind made loud whistling sounds over each plant. The frogs chirped with renewed vigor. I tightened my fingers around the bottle and looked back towards the shore. The rock where Fayleen sat looked beautiful in the sun. She lay with her eyes closed, her blonde hair shining around her.
I picked up the pace. Something was wrong. There was too much noise and yet not enough. The moment the sand hit my toes I was running. I raced to Fayleen's side and put my soaking hand on her head. She did not stir.
"Fayleen! Fayleen!" I cried, shaking her viciously.
"She will not wake."
I turned quickly to see who spoke. There was no one behind me on the shore. I shivered in the breaze and turned back to my friend. I focused on her.
"Come on Fayleen. This is not funny." I whispered.
"Child, I told you she will not wake. She is not injured. She will come to no harm. She is simply frozen in time. She can neither here nor see you. She has no idea that time is even passing."
I turned around again, tears filling my throat. Fear quickened my heart and pushed my stomach into a knot.
This time I saw her. It was a lady. She wore a green gown that was made out of some kind of fabric I had never seen before. Something like moss. Her pale skin was almost transparent. And she was beautiful. She spoke to me without really speaking, as if the words were in my head before they left her lips.
"Who are you?" I asked.
" I am the Lady of the Forest. I am here to ask something of you, Tieve. You must listen closely to my words for I do not have much time to speak with you."
My knees knocked together. I had heard Sorcha's story before and I knew that when the Fair folk chose to use you, there was no choice in the matter. I also knew that it meant tragedy for the person involved.
"What do you want…" I whispered.
"First, I will give you something that you want and then I will give you instructions. I have things to tell you. I can answer the questions that you have had all of your life. But you must follow my directions and go where I tell you to go. If you agree to do this, I will tell you who you are. I will tell you who your father is. "
Her sentence was not yet finished and in the air before I agreed. "Yes, I will do it."
I expected her to argue with my immediate response but she did not. I sensed her urgency.
"Very well. You are indeed a Halfling or as close as they come in this world. You were born of a swan mother and a swan father. Your father is Finbar of Sevenwaters. He who suffered worst from the curse set upon this household by Oognacht. He will never be whole again and he can never know that you exist."
Whatever I had hoped she would say, this was not it. I had hoped that my family was important. When the other children had teased me and called me orphan I had hoped that my parents were still alive and looking for me. I had never considered that they might not know that I was alive.
"How can I be human? If my father was a swan when I was born then I must have been born a swan…"
The Lady shook her beautiful head with irritation.
"Your mind is simple. It is hard to understand the workings of our world. The Lady Oognacht spelled your father to be a swan and that is what he was. You were born a swan. Your father felt the pull of being a swan more than the others. He started a family. He had to leave you behind to fly to heed his sister's call. That day, he became human. That same day, the swans left the lake."
My mind raced. How horrible that must have been. To know that your family is so close but they could never know you, they would always fear you.
I stared at my hands. My human hands.
"My mother took us away?" I asked.
"I intervened. You were an egg when I took you away from the nest. I knew that Finbar was Lady Oognacht's greatest threat and that she would try to destroy him. I could see that the power within him and his sister would be passed through the Sevenwaters line. I knew that one of their children would save us. I took you away and to the other world. You remained with me until the curse was broken and then I saw what Finbar had become. It had been our hope that Sorcha would save all of her brothers but it was not meant to be. Finbar can now walk between worlds. He is more powerful and yet, very weak. Although my plan had been to send you to him to train, I see now that he cannot handle such a burden."
I sank into the grass beside the rock and felt my head grow heavy and ache.
"This magic is taking its toll on you. We are losing our power in this world. I used your own magic to create this place to speak with you. I put the bottle here to call to you. In the bottle in a letter Finbar wrote to his family. He was still young when he returned to Sevenwaters. He was broken with regret. I saved the letter and now I am giving it to you."
I looked at the bottle in my hand and tried to imagine what it might say. My head hurt. It was so heavy.
"I must tell you quickly what I must ask you to do, child. You must do it. For it is important to all of Sevenwaters. They will never know that there is another child of the house here. You may tell them someday, but only once Finbar is gone. He must never know that he spawned a child. Such a thought will sadden him more than you can know. There are rules that were broken with what I have done. To bring an animal to a human life is not natural, but your half human status made it so."
"You must travel over the sea to a little island. You must taken something there for me. You must follow the path I have marked and you must not say a word about what I have told you. To break this rule, would mean your death. On this journey, you will meet with a man. He is to be yours and you must do all at your disposal to keep him beside you. He plays and important role in what is to come. You must not forget this. You have power, I will help you learn to use it along the way, but one way or another, you must make this man fall in love with you. A choice that he will make will determine the future of Sevenwaters and you must speak for Sevenwaters in that choice. If you do not, they will fall."
I felt the pounding in my head begin to subside and I knew that she would disappear soon. I could not speak. I was weak. I lay back on the grass. The strength seemed to seep from my body and into the ground.
The Lady knew that time was short. She moved closer to me and put a white hand on my head. Coolness flowed into me. I sank back in relief, feeling more at peace.
"Your time in Sevenwaters is at an end but you must never forget your duty. Your family promised us a long time ago to protect this land. In exchange, we gave them the forest and its protection for many generations. You are needed to keep this protection strong. This will not be easy. Your quest will be difficult but I will help you when I can. As I said, our powers are weaker now. And when you get where you are going, I will have nearly no power at all. You must learn to use your own. We could have had more time, if you had been trained but your body cannot handle much more. I must go. Read the letter. Go home, pack supplies and head west to the fifth lake. Camp there and then follow the path to the north until it ends. Do not fail me. Your family has done well in the past. See that you continue that tradition. Good bye Tieve.."
As the last words left her mouth I could feel myself giving up. Like the child I was sitting upon Miran's lap, too exhausted to fight. I drifted into the dark.