Where the Path Leads – Chapter 23

• MARY DRAKE –

In last month’s chapter, Emily gets lost in Blackwood Forest when she fails to listen to her guide. Following a mysterious noise, she goes off on her own and gets in deep trouble. Only magical intervention is enough to save her.

Chapter 23: Just in Time

Her nostrils were filled with the smell of dirt as she huddled in a corner of the pit trying to keep warm, scanning the darkness above her.  What were those unknown noises?  Hooting, baying, howling, rustling. Some were distant; some, frighteningly close.

            Her weary thoughts wandered back to Sophia, locked away on the third floor, laboring over her loom; to the frightening Seneschal, swathed in darkness before the fireplace; to the creepy steward, reciting cryptic poetry; to the fool’s errand she’d been sent on.  Periodically, she recalled the cherub-faced people who had refused to help her out of this pit. What were they up to?

            Preoccupied with all these thoughts circling through her mind, she tried to stay awake but may have drifted again into an uneasy sleep. At some point, she thought that the mouth of the pit was surrounded by many faces all jostling with one another to see her and holding torches aloft. She blinked into the light as her eyes gradually adjusted, then saw a crowd of moon-faced, half-sized people staring down in wonderment. One person with very rosy cheeks and a bulbous red nose leaned in close, holding his torch aloft and gaping, and muttered something to his companion about  “. . . when it falls right into our lap,” then he laughed and tipped his head back to drink from a stag horn cup someone handed him. Another of the visitors lay with his stomach on the ground to get a better view and leered at her, smiling and licking is lips. Then he hooted, produced a long stick and started poking her, to the general amusement of those around him. She yelped in surprise and jumped up from the corner. The small people were all talking among themselves, some laughing as if they were at a party. The one lying on the ground widened his mischievous dark eyes in mock surprise, formed his little cherub mouth into an exaggerated O, glanced back at his companions, then poked her again. While she was avoiding the stick, a very portly little person suddenly came to stand in front of the others, his roundness, shortness, and paleness combining to make him look like a self-important snowman.  He crossed his arms authoritatively over an ample belly. His round, pink-cheeked face, set off by the ermine collar of his long cloak, may have been child like, but the firelight revealed a glint in his dark eyes that was anything but innocent. He considered her thoughtfully, his head cocked to one side, a strange headpiece of pine cones, teasel, and milkweed pods sitting at a rakish angle atop it.  He must be their King. 

            The two who had found her earlier were on either side of him, holding torches aloft for him to see, and the one who had given her his cloak bowed low before speaking.

            “You see, sire, she kept pleading to be taken out, but we wouldn’t do anything without first consulting your royal highness.”

            “She begged so pitifully that Otto gave her his cloak, your majesty,” said the other, “although personally I thought that might be going a bit too far.”

            “I didn’t want her to freeze to death before your royal highness could see her,” said Otto in self defense. “Besides, it was Igor who offered to throw her down his sash so she could climb out.”            

            “But I didn’t, did I? I thought of throwing her an apple or some nuts, your majesty, to fatten her up.” They all began talking among themselves again and jostling for a look.

            “Enough!”  The King held up a white, chubby hand, and there was gradual quietening. Clearing his throat, he gazed down at Emily, speaking in a sonorous voice.

            “Young woman, you have the honor of being in the presence of Oberon, King of the pixies. We pixies live and hunt in this part of the forest, which belongs to us. We do not welcome visitors, especially mortals.”  There was a general murmuring around him, as if they were all agreeing, but he held up his hand again for silence.

            So that’s what they were–pixies. Recalling that the knight who had disappeared had insulted the King, she tried to be her most polite. “I’m sorry, your majesty, but I lost my way when I came here. In fact, I was drawn here by a loud whistling–that’s what really caused me to wander from the trail.”

            The pixies immediately grew agitated, talking with even more animation among themselves again, but Oberon merely had to cock one eyebrow and glance angrily around him and the commotion subsided. When silence again reigned and he finally spoke, his face was flushed, though even in the torchlight she could see the whiteness of his skin beneath the red blotches.

            “That would be Ogma, a displaced god and our mortal enemy. He enchants faerie folk and mortals alike with his fair words or, as in your case, with false hope of finding something. He often takes the form of the breeze whistling through bare branches, and more than one of my subjects has been lured away to the abyss, food for the dragon, no doubt.”

            Unsure whether to believe all this about a wind enchanter, she grew impatient, but tried not to sound that way.

            “Please, your majesty, I don’t mean to impose on your hospitality. If you would rather I wasn’t in this part of the forest, I will be glad to leave, but first I must get out of here. I’m afraid I hurt my ankle, though, when I fell, and I can’t climb out. It’s too deep. Do you think you could have your subjects pull me out of here?”

            His face was a picture of childish indecision.

            “Certainly I could. However, you are a mere girl, wandering unattended in Blackwood forest, into our hunting ground, and you followed Ogma here of your own accord, after all.  Some might say you got what you deserved. What do you expect?”

             The pixies had been quiet up to that point, but once more all broke into excited conversation, presumably debating whether she deserved her fate.

            Stung by his judgment, delivered so casually, she instinctively retorted, “I expect you to help me!”  Instantly she regretted her words, and added a weak, “Please?”

            If Oberon had been standing beside her, he may only have come up to her waist, but still he straightened himself to his full kingly stature.

            “No one expects anything from the King of the pixies,” he said, lifting his double chins haughtily into the air. “This trap is laid to catch our food. Why, we have every right to put you into a stew.” General head nodding and whispering followed as the pixies agreed among themselves. The bulbous-nosed pixie rubbed his hands together in anticipation, and the pixie lying on the ground had a mischievous grin and with his stick pretended to be stirring a pot, which elicited laughter from those around him. She heard words like “tender” and “gravy” and “seasoning.”

            “You can’t be serious!” she cried.  This must be a hunger-induced nightmare.

            “I rarely jest about food, young woman,” said Oberon.

            “No, he never does,” said Igor.

            “It’s a serious matter,” chimed in Otto.

            “And it’s been a stag’s age since I’ve had good stew,” said the King thoughtfully. 

            “We have plenty of onions to add, your majesty,” said Otto.

            “She would probably cook up nice and tender, sire,” said Igor, looking at her appraisingly. 

            “May I then have my cloak back, your majesty?” Otto asked, humbly.

            The King ignored the question, announcing imperiously, “Prepare the cauldron!”

            Overhead, the crowd of pixies all began talking at once and started bustling off, except for the King and his two attendants.

            “You can’t do this!” she insisted, attempting to sound bold even though her stomach felt like jelly and her legs threatened to buckle under.

            “May I set your majesty’s table?” Igor asked ingratiatingly.

            “Should I season her with rosemary and sage before cooking, your royal highness?” asked Otto.

            Instinctively she backed up.

            “This time tomorrow, we shall have a feast!” Oberon rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Until then, I’ll repair to my throne, awaiting supper.” 

            Otto gathered up the King’s long mantle obsequiously.

            “Bring me elderberry wine,” Oberon ordered, “to whet my appetite.”

            Igor bowed his obeisance.

            “And don’t forget to sharpen my knife.”  He gave Emily a last wicked glance and turned to go.

            Her loom seldom stopped moving during the day. As she plied the foot pedals, Sophia found the soft clunk and swish of the heddles moving up and down a reassuring sound, and the action of throwing the shuttle from side to side was always hypnotic, helping her forget the cold stone walls enclosing her.

             The autumn day was grey, and little light came through the window slits in the walls high above her. She was weaving almost without looking at the deep purple fabric the Seneschal had ordered. But something began to bother her, like a burr in her stocking, an unseen discomfort. Sophia trained her eyes on the wine-colored cloth, searching, as she’d done so often before, allowing her pupils to dilate and take it all in.

            A gathering of pixies appeared, all busily collecting sticks and branches, adding them to a bonfire burning underneath an immense, steaming cauldron, at least as big as three of the mini-men. Pixies had a reputation for voracious appetites and their gluttonous feasts were the stuff of legend.

            Their King was seated on a tree stump fashioned into a seat with a high back made of willow branches, interwoven with reeds and adorned with teasel and yellow leaves. Before him knelt a pixie with a whetstone, rubbing a knife back and forth, while another one hovered about, washing wooden plates and laying them carefully on a large flat stone that served as a table.

            “I’ve got one plate for the onions, one for greens, and I’ve saved the biggest for the main course, your royal highness.”

            “Where’s that elderberry wine?” barked the King. “I need it to deaden my mouth to the aftertaste of mortal.”

            “With this sharp knife, your majesty, you can cut her up nice and small, so you can swallow without chewing.”

            “Is that pot almost ready? I haven’t eaten in the last hour and the sooner this stew is ready, the better. I’m famished.”

            Another pixie who had been preparing the fire came and knelt before the King.

            “The cauldron is almost ready sire. Do you want her cooked well, or would you prefer her rare?”

            He waved the question away with a dismissive gesture. “I’m about to eat her raw if I have to wait much longer.”

            Sophia knew who they were talking about and acted quickly.

             When Emily heard someone calling her name, she roused herself from the bottom of the pit where she huddled in dread. The grey half-light of dawn barely revealed the Mistress of the Creatures crouched at the top of the pit, her dark hair hanging down. 

            Emily was so relieved it wasn’t the pixies that she cried out in relief.

            “Oh!  You’re just the one I wanted to find. I’m so glad you’re here.”

            Annamund put a finger to her lips. “Shh! Don’t attract attention,” she whispered, then extended her hand.  Surprisingly, Annamund was strong enough to pull her out. 

            Later, when they had left the land of the pixies behind, she bandaged Emily’s sprained ankle and watched as she ate ravenously some dried mushrooms and wild blueberries. It wasn’t until after she had satisfied her thirst at a stream and Annamund was fashioning a walking stick for her out of a young hickory sapling, that Emily thought to ask how she had found her.

            “Someone is watching out for you.”  Annamund said mysteriously. 

            “Oderic?”

            Annamund tilted her head to look at Emily, amused.  “No.  A wise woman.”

            Emily told her the whole story then. Everything that had happened since she’d last seen the Mistress of the Creatures came spilling out, beginning with the Seneschal’s imprisonment of Sophia and his condition that she must bring him back a branch from the cypress tree, and ending with the pixies wanting to eat her for their supper.

            “The pixies have always held themselves above other faerie folk,” Annamund said, shaking her head. “They rule the center of Blackwood Forest as if it belongs to them alone, with no tolerance for anyone who strays into their hunting grounds. Most faeries don’t even eat meat.”

            Emily nodded recalling Oderic saying the same. “But what I really don’t understand is why a cypress branch is so important. Why must I go all the way to the abyss after it.”

            Annamund’s brown eyes were serious.  “What did he tell you about it?”

            “Just that he wants it. Morwen recited some kind of chant about being a creator of your own destiny.”

            A line appeared on Annamund’s pretty face between her eyebrows as she scowled.

            “Meddling with dark magic, I see.”

            “What magic?  A tree?”

            “Not just any tree, Emilia, the solitary cypress at the edge of the world. It’s thought to have great power. If it doesn’t kill you, it can help you live indefinitely, much longer than a normal mortal.”

            “Kill you? How can a tree kill you?” She thought Annamund must be exaggerating.

            “It’s at the very edge of the abyss, the opening to the underworld. Getting a branch means going far out to a dangerous place. Some say it’s guarded by the dragon who lives at the bottom of the abyss . . . , but then you don’t believe in that, do you?” Annamund said dryly, standing up.

            “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I never thought there were so many magical, but unfriendly, creatures here in the forest, either.”            

            “Dangerous mortals are more to be feared than faerie folk or creatures,” Annamund pointed out, and Emily remembered that, after all, she was talking to the Mistress of the Creatures. 

            “But don’t travel through the forest in fear, Emilia. Fear has a scent others can find. It creates its own dangers. Fear is what drew Ogma to you. Besides, it makes you miserable.” She smiled, her long dark hair falling across her shoulders as she leaned forward to help Emily up. “Let’s go find those we needn’t fear, your friend Oderic and mine, Gabriel.”