The Bitterbynde Trilogy (65 page)

The thought flashed into Imrhien's head, unbidden:
A kiss
. She hoped he had not read it on her countenance. In her confusion, her hands faltered, bungling the signs.

<>

He nodded and stood a moment as if pondering. Then swiftly, before she understood what was happening, he stepped forward, placed one hand gently under her chin and the other behind her head, and kissed her full on the mouth.

Only twice before had there been direct contact between them. Now, bolts like the Beithir's, only sweet as ecstasy, went through and through from head to toe, over and over, until she thought she must die; then he released her quickly and strode away up the hill, and she fled, stumbling, weeping, through the trees.

Salt tears coursed down Imrhien's face, stinging. The footpath in its ribbed tunnel became blurred, swimming in grief and loss. She ran faster, to outstrip sorrow, to leave it behind, but always it followed close at her heels. Away and around and down, over the bridge and up and around again, now slicing between high hedges or under stone walls, now passing across open turf, now through an oak coppice, now beneath the spreading boughs of chestnuts, black in the fading light. Eerie, slitted eyes glared from among tree-roots and winked out. Sudden laughter rattled in outlandish throats. Things scurried suddenly, unseen. A white hare bounded across the path. Something hooted.

Ahead, warm yellow lamplight spilled from two windows and filtered through the trees, growing stronger as she neared it. Her face drenched with salt water, she found herself at a cottage door. The tears would not stop, nor did she care anymore, although they made her flesh itch intolerably. Distraught, she thumped her fists on the portal and slumped against it, dragging in breath with hoarse gasps.

When the door opened she half fell inside, was caught by strong arms, and looked into the face of an old woman. The beldame held her shoulders in an iron grip for a few moments. Her left eye bestowed on the unexpected visitor a searching stare. There was a hollow where her right eye had been. The eyelids were crudely stitched shut. Above the eyes, a painted blue disk on the forehead.

“Great ganders, what's all this?” exclaimed the woman. “Govern yourself, colleen!”

Shudders racked Imrhien's body. The crone led her to a straw pallet and bade her lie down.

“It will be a cure for the paradox you're wanting, no doubt. That much I can see. I shall do what can be done. But first, drink this. 'Twill calm you.”

Imrhien gulped the liquid. The flavor was unusual but not unpleasant, reminiscent of riverside herbs nodding in the rain—cool and fragrant. Tranquillity flowed along her veins. She lay quiescent. Only her face still itched, and she tore at it idly with her fingernails.

“Stop that. It is for me to see to.” The carlin drew Imrhien's hand away, firmly. Placing her own sinewy hands on her patient's face, she hesitated, then drew a sharp breath.

The girl cared little. An irresistible desire to sleep had surged over her, and she abandoned herself to it, closing her eyes and drifting. The carlin's voice seemed to issue from far away:

“Very well, sleep now. That will give me time to mix up the mud.”

Then sleep's dark current carried her away under the green herbs that overgrew its banks, in a ceaseless rain.

There was a face, once. It had been the first one. But it was more than a face
—
it was comfort to assuage yearning, satiation to defeat hunger, warmth to drive out chill, cool to calm heat, movement instead of stillness, company against loneliness, sweet sounds to alleviate silence, peace to replace distress. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth
—
there was nothing else about it
—
no characteristics of age or gender, yet it was the one face to be recognized above all. It meant the source of life
.

Its disappearance had precipitated a void that sucked the light out of that part of existence
.

The second face had begun like the first, as beloved, yet differently. It had evolved, over time, and become the countenance of a man of wisdom and kindness, the corners of his eyes crinkled with good humor. Always he had been there, smiling down from a great height: solid, dependable
.

The third face had altered, too. It had made its appearance on the edges of the lacuna left by the first, beginning as no more than a blur, an irritation to be dismissed, but evolving to be the sweet visage of a little child: precious, cherished, a friend and companion, a marigold. Apple-blossoms reached over the child's head. Petals drifted like snow. Small green fruits swelled and ripened on the boughs, like red lamps, and were gathered …

Woman, man, child. A dream
?

A churning of thoughts, released by sleep, or, at last, some memory
?

For as long as she could remember, the rain had been drumming its impatient fingers. Seemingly it had done so since time itself had begun—but no, it had been raining only during the night, and now the night was over.

Imrhien was lying on a straw pallet among blankets of white wool. There were bunches of herbs hanging from the rafters, a mortar and pestle on a low table, and a boy kneeling, building up the fire. He finished his task, glanced at her, and moved away. She raised herself on one elbow and saw, through narrow slits, Maeve One-Eye sitting in a chair, watching her. The beldame's shaggy bush of hair stuck out in all directions like spikes of frost.

Imrhien's face felt odd—very peculiar indeed. It still itched, but not unbearably, and it tingled. Her cheeks were numb to the touch, and stiff; her eyes would not open properly.

“You will not feel a thing under all that mud,” observed the carlin. “I put it on you while you slept. That way, I knew you would, at least, not wriggle about. It is caked on thickly, and it has dried—do not try to smile—you will find it impossible. All the way from Mount Baelfire it is, the blue mud—that's the only place in Erith you can get the really good stuff. You look a terrible sight, I can tell you. Once it has soaked right into the poisoned areas, the mud will flake off of its own accord and take some of the bad flesh with it. How long
that
will take, I cannot say—it varies with each case. It might be one day or three, or ten, but you will not be able to eat while it is on, only sip through a hollow reed, so I hope you are not hungry. Look in the glass, over there by the window.”

Light-headed, Imrhien stood up. Immediately the itching returned with redoubled force. The carlin's long mirror stood by the window. It was made of glass and silver, the frame wrought in the shapes of twining lilies and watermaidens with flowing hair. The surface gleamed like watersheen—an eldritch-seeming looking-glass.

Imrhien viewed in it her reflection, tall and slender, dressed in the country garb of Rosedale. Her long hair cascaded free of the wimple, in ringlets and straight tresses, like skeins of tangled silk, framing a mask with two slits for eyeholes. But the irritation of salt tears under the hardened mud was too much to bear, and she raised her hands to her face. Somehow she must find relief. Her fingers worried at the mud-mask, and it came off in her hands.

It lifted off in one entire piece.

Beneath it, the face.

Ah, the face. The lips formed such a perfect, rosy bow, as though painted upon the smooth, creamy peach of the skin. Clean-molded lines, high cheekbones, a softly rounded chin and small, neat nose, the soft curve of the cheek, arched eyebrows, the great jewels of eyes, fringed with their sweeping lashes—this was the face looking back at Imrhien from the glass.

Scarcely knowing what was happening, not daring to believe, she touched that face with her fingertips, explored it all over, gently, and it did not disappear; only, color like roses flooded it, and the light of morning sprang into the eyes. The lump that had been sticking in her throat ever since she awoke expanded painfully now.

Was it beauty or homeliness that gazed out of the mirror's frame? She could not tell, for aesthetic perception is subjective, and she habitually assumed the source of her own reflection was repugnant. Only, she knew that it was symmetrical and thus more acceptable than before. More acceptable—that was all she had hoped for.

By her side, Maeve One-Eye gently took the hollow mask of mud from the girl's frozen hand. The carlin had been gazing in silence. She squinted, as if she perceived a bright light that hurt her eye or a sight she would rather not have seen.

Now she spoke.

“Well. This has worked a wonder. See you, lass? See you?”

The lump broke apart. A force welled up and gushed forth.

“Yes. I see,” softly Imrhien
said
.

Acknowledgments

Much research has gone into portraying wights as “accurately” as possible—that is, true to their traditional folk origins. It has been a joy to rescue the early written records of these traditions from the cobwebby darkness of out-of-printness. By weaving them into my tale, I hope to bring them into the light of the twenty-first century, as they deserve.

The Each Uisge and the Water-Bull:
Inspired by
Popular Tales of the West Highlands
, by J. F. Campbell. Alexander, Gardner, Paisley and London, 1890–93.

The Duergar:
Inspired by
Folk-Tales of the North Country
, by F. Grice. Nelson, London and Edinburgh, 1944.

The Beulach Beast:
Inspired by “The Biasd Bheulach” in
Witchcraft and the Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland
, by J. G. Campbell. MacLehose, Glasgow, 1902.

The Buggane:
Inspired by
A Manx Scrapbook
, by Walter Gill. Arrowsmith, London, 1929.

The Trathley Kow:
Inspired by “The Hedley Kow” in
Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties
, by William Henderson. Folk-Lore Society, London, 1879.

Cobie Will and the Sleepers:
Inspired by
The Denham Tracts
, edited by James Hardy. Folk-Lore Society, London, 1892.

The Lake Cow:

Come thou, Einion's Yellow One
,

Stray-horns, The Parti-coloured Lake Cow
,

And the hornless Dodin
,

Arise, come home
.

Sourced from
The Four Ancient Books of Wales
, by W. F. Skene. Edmonston & Douglas, Edinburgh, 1868.

The Pipes Leantainn:
Inspired by “The Friar and the Boy,” by W. Carew Hazlitt, in
National Tales and Legends
, London, 1899.

The Trow-Wives and the Swatts:
Inspired by “The Trows' Revenge” in
County Folk-Lore III: Orkney and Shetland
, edited by G. F. Black. Folk-Lore Society, London, 1903.

The Trows and the Trow-Stock:
Inspired by “Da Trow's Bundle” in
County Folk-Lore III: Orkney and Shetland
, edited by G. F. Black. Folk-Lore Society, London, 1903.

The Spinner with the Long Lip:
Inspired by
Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties
, by William Henderson. Folk-Lore Society, London, 1879.

The Trow-Boy Who Stole Silver:
Inspired by
Shetland Traditional Lore
, by Jessie M. E. Saxby, Norwich, London, 1888.

The trow-boy's lament, “… when I be allowed to veesit Trowland for a peerie start—but a' I gets is eggshells tae crack atween me teeth followed by a lunder upon me lugs and a wallop ower me back. So I wanders
wanless
, poor object!” is quoted from this source.

The Trow-Wife's Song:

Hey! co Cuttie an' ho! co Cuttie
,

An' wha'ill dance wi' me? co Cuttie
.

She luked aboot an' saw naebody
,

Sae I'll henk awa' mesel', co Cuttie
.

Quoted from page 39 of
Shetland Folk Lore
, by John Spence. Johnson & Grieg, Lerwick, 1899.

The Lady of the Sorrows

Book Two of the Bitterbynde Trilogy

Cecilia Dart-Thornton