Short Stories 2020 (Prompts/Contest Entries)

The Listeners

Morial brushed through the undergrowth at the head of the stream and stumbled down to the lake. Her heart pounded – whether from the exertion of walking up here so quickly or from nervousness, she couldn't tell. The early morning air was cold, especially in this sacred place, but the light was already spilling down into the valley from the hilltops opposite.

*

She'd been woken a while before dawn by a pressing sense of unease – so pressing she'd had to slip out from under Aidhne, to dress silently in the dark and sit quietly in the garden to attune herself to the Spirits. Immediately, the urgent need to come to this place – not just anywhere, this place – had borne down on her. The Spirits were beyond uneasy, but she did not know why. (No, she suspected why, but was unwilling to recognise it.) She was being summoned.

She'd gently woken a reluctant Aidhne – they rarely slept apart these days. Aidhne'd left after a lingering kiss, disappearing into the grey pre-dawn still fastening her dress. Morial had collected her cap and cloak, then set off upstream away from the village.

*

Removing her cap and letting her dark hair flow loose over her shoulders, she knelt slowly on the shingle to close her eyes, finding a moment of calm; she murmured greetings to the listening Spirits. They were always listening, and watching, but here – where their realm touched that of mortals most closely – their presence could be overwhelming to the unwary or uninitiated. It was dutiful to acknowledge them all, but she and they knew that she was there to talk to one only.

She dipped her left hand in the gently shifting water and passed it across her face with the customary ritual words of cleansing, then placed her right palm more carefully on the surface, holding it still. All spirit-listeners could communicate with all the Spirits, lift the veil between the worlds in communion with whichever Spirit was most appropriate in the moment. But each Listener had her own particular elemental affinity, and water was Morial's. It had marked her since birth and chosen her more clearly every year in the two-and-twenty summers since. Water had guided her apprenticeship in the craft, and it was to water that she felt closest. She was the Listener to Bentreah'lia, the Blue Lady.

Bentreah'lia was expecting her, it was she had called her here. Truth be told, Morial knew Bentreah'lia had been calling for a while now, and that she had been ignoring the call. With an effort, she maintained her calm breathing. It did not do to approach the Spirits in agitation, or weakness.

Holding her hand level on the water's surface, she noticed the sunlight dapple hesitantly across the far shallows – little touches of dawn's fire on the cold lake. Water was treacherous, but it was its beauty under sunlight which always most attracted Morial. She felt ready to approach.

Instinctively, her first finger broke the surface in the ritual beckoning. Although the Spirits were always present, it was her place to invite them to cross over. Until they were invited by a mortal, they could only make their presence felt indirectly – it was for the likes of Morial to attend to them and be their messenger in her world, and she knew that it must be something pressing indeed for her to feel as if she was summoned so urgently to this sacred spot.

Her name echoed across the valley as she touched her finger to the water, answering the lake's calls for her. As soon as she did, a sentence appeared on the surface of the water (and she heard Bentreah'lia's voice in her head): I know what you did last summer.

Morial felt her heart jump. What in Creation was suddenly so important that was already nigh-on a twelvemonth past? "The year is fully turned since then, Lady. What in particular do you wish to know?"

That which troubles your conscience, Morial.

"Nothing troubles my conscience, Lady."