Page 91 of Into the Heartless Wood
and is girded with a strand of rowan berries.
“You seek us.” His voice is deep and rich as the earth itself. “I will take you to our dwelling place. Come.”
He turns and strides into the wood.
I follow, crossing the pool. Cold water laps over my knees.
He leads me up a slight incline,
to a place where pines grow thick and strong,
scattered with copses of birch trees and elms.
We break through the tree line. A cliff rises sheer and straight before us, blocking out the sky.
Butted up against the cliff is a stone structure thatched with pine needles. Beside it march plants in neat rows.
I realize the structure is a house, the rows of plants a garden.
I ask: “Who lives here?”
My brother turns to me, a smile touching his face. “We do.”
Ducking out of the low doorway come my other two brothers.
One has a beard of knotted moss,
the other a tangle of rowan berries growing out of his hair.
The one who led me here joins them.
I fall to my knees at their feet.
All three of them crouch down where I kneel.
The brother with the moss beard
touches my chin with his rough finger,
raises my face to his. “Little one. What is your name?”
“Our mother did not give me a name.”
“Our mother does not like names. Names are power, you know.” He smiles. “I am Pren. He is Cangen.” Pren nods to the brother who met me at the pool. “And he is Criafol.” Pren nods to the brother with the rowan berries in his hair. “We named ourselves. Not very cleverly, but the names belong to us and not to her. That gives us power for ourselves, do you see?” Pren takes my hands and raises me to my feet. Cangen and Criafol stand as well.
I say: “Perhaps.”
Cangen says: “None of our other sisters sought us out. None of them found their names. But you have. That is why we heard you calling to us.”
I draw myself up very straight. “I am Seren.”
Cangen smiles. “And so you are. What request would you make of us, Seren?”
Fear twists through me,
but I have not come
all this way
