Scout Stories: Bruised Beginnings

Mist

Last summer a traveler had refused to stay in the village, said it was unnatural. The next day a hunting party had found his bones, clean and polished. They still wore all his clothes, dirty from travelling. They had blamed the wolves. Even Miach knew that wolves wouldn't have left the marrow-rich bones untouched.

When she was only a little girl, an older boy had gone missing. The other kids said that the adults had searched for six days. Everyone tried hard not to listen to his friend who kept telling them what had happened. He even had his friend's bracelet, made from the leather of a black buck brought down at midnight. Nobody would have left such a powerful charm behind, yet the friend said it hadn't mattered. He said the boy had taken it off before disappearing into the fairy ring.

Miach shivered and kept running.

Those were only stories.

Tegid didn't seem so scary compared to that, but she had to keep the books safe.

She clutched at her own bracelets, protective charms of some small power. Grandmother made them for her.

Miach thought about hiding them in the other mounds. Tegid wasn't interested in graves. A bracelet she wore had charms made from flowers that grew over her mother's grave. One of the most powerful ingredients for a charm. Grandmother had told her that. Quite a few young girls crept down there before dances to make beauty charms. Miach and Brianna had talked about making their own in a few years when they could go.

That was why hiding the books there wouldn't work. People be down there for Grandmother's funeral. People were always down there. There wasn't anywhere in the village that didn't have people milling about.

Miach could only think of one place that wouldn't be disturbed.

Hardly anyone from the village was brave enough to go within a mile of the fairy ring, so of course every child saw it. It was a test of courage for them. Miach had climbed on top of one of the unused lookout towers to see over the trees into the clearing. Various wild flowers and mushrooms grew there, outside of the circle around the tree. The tree inside the circle was small, and had been small for a long time. It was always green, even in the middle of winter. Often flowers grew, although no petal were ever on the ground.

The villagers said that sometimes people went out and came back... different. They were angrier, or a little mad. The villagers usually tied them down for a few days until they got back to themselves. Nobody talked about it. No one had ever said that it was because they got close to the tree. They didn't have to.

Grandmother hadn't believed any of it. Grandmother had been braver than the Rí. She had even gone into the clearing to gather ingredients for her medicine. Miach wasn't supposed to know that. Her and Briana had spotted Grandmother doing it be accident. They had spent days afterwards watching Grandmother for some sign of the madness.

That was how Miach knew it was safe.

Now if she could only ignore the churning in her stomach.

Every villager had spent their lives trying to avoid the fairy mound, so they all knew where it was. While running, Miach startled some rabbits, and a fox that had been after them. She ran out of breath just as the clearing came into view. It felt like her heart shivered as she looked on it. It was beautiful in an eerie way. The moonlight and shadows of drifting clouds danced across the flowers in total silence.

She straightened up and remembered. Grandmother had been there and nothing had happened.

Of course Grandmother never actually went inside the circle, said a treacherous voice in her mind.

Miach shook her head and walked forward. Her steps slowed as she came closer to the edge of the circle. She stopped altogether when she looked up at the tree and saw tiny, delicate flowers there. There was also a knot in the tree, just big enough for her to squeeze her bag into.

Grandmother's books would be safe there.

Miach chewed the inside of her cheek and gazed at her feet. She'd come this far and nothing had happened. One more step and she would be inside. But she didn't move forward, she just kept looking at her feet.

She swung the bag off her back and opened it.

She had to find out. She had to know why the books were so important before doing this. She would be quick about it. Brianna could hold out for a little bit.

She took out a book and examined it. It was the one with the cover. Dyed dark blue, it had three concentric circles on the cover. There was a slash through the circles. An accident with a surgical knife?

Miach flipped it open at the middle. Her Grandmother's neat handwriting and pretty drawings covered the pages. It made Miach feel better, safer, just by looking at it. She didn't wipe away the tears that flowed down her cheeks.

She sat down, at the edge of the mound. Brianna couldn't wait forever. Tegid was chasing her. She didn't have the time for this.

She also didn't know how long it would be before she could come back.

She saw her own name written in Grandmother's handwriting. The tears got worse then, making it impossible to read.

That was when a hand, bone white and completely perfect, reached over her shoulder and turned the page.