Once upon a summer, p.24
Once Upon a Summer, page 24
“Ready?” Morveren asked, taking a bite of bread.
“Yes,” Fenella replied hesitantly, “for what exactly?”
“Revenge, my sweet.”
Fenella saw the murderous glint in Morveren’s eye. She knew then that nothing good was to be committed that night. She nodded tightly and dropped her gaze.
“Don’t worry, your household will not be affected,” Morveren promised.
“I’m not worried.”
“Then let us go.”
Fenella led Morveren to her village. They walked purposefully, ready to reap hell. The summer sky was darkening and was filled with thunderous clouds. A summer storm was brewing. It was almost as if it knew what was about to happen. The thick warm rain droplets started to fall, soaking the pair’s thin clothes. Fenella was glad for the coolness as she had run several miles already that night.
“So what are we going to do when we get there?” Fenella asked.
“Your auntie, and the other women, they need to suffer for what they have done to me.”
“What are we going to do to them? Magic? Murder?”
“I don’t know yet,” Morveren admitted. “I have limited magic in this form.”
“Alright.”
“I need you to tell me everything you know about your auntie and the women that aided her.”
Fenella told her everything while they walked. About Auntie’s life, the family, the women she controlled and their obsession with the church. Morveren listened dutifully, without interruption. Fenella found it easy to talk about her auntie because of the resentment she felt for her when Maw was ill. She vowed that she would look after her horrible cousins if anything happened to their maw.
“You have no love for this woman?” Morveren asked.
“None.”
“I thought humans loved their family members fearlessly.”
“We do, I do… but that woman is no family,” Fenella said bitterly.
“I see.” Morveren went quiet. She had grown fond of her little servant and felt doubly enraged with the woman’s existence.
“The bairns, nothing will happen to them?”
“I can’t promise that.”
“Please,” Fenella begged, clutching to Morveren, clawing her arms and pulling her to a stop.
Morveren decided to humour her human companion. “You care for them, why?”
“It isn’t their fault they were raised by a madwoman; they haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I understand you humans less and less with every conversation we have, bairn.”
“That’s okay. I understand them enough for the both of us.”
“You must remember to burn sage in the window of your home when we begin. My friends will know to leave it undisturbed, and valerian to ensure they stay asleep.”
“I have a stockpile as you asked. What will happen to the other villagers that weren’t involved?” Fenella asked.
“Call it a lesson, but I’ll focus my powers on the women who wronged me. Tell me their names.”
Fenella told her.
“Go now, protect your family, and meet me on the ridge once you have done.”
“Will I need to hide?” asked Fenella.
“No, you have my mark. It is a protection of the highest kind. Animals and supernatural beings wouldn’t dare mess with you while you bear my mark.”
“Alright.”
“It is with you forever, as a token of my appreciation,” Morveren said with a small nod of appreciation.
“Ta, Morveren.”
Fenella was sure then that the Maighdean-mara had come to care for her. She nodded once more and sneaked through the silent, sleepy houses to her family home.
Since her illness passed, Maw had allowed Fenella her own bed. She said that it was because she was nearly a grown woman and it wouldn’t do to share with the bairns. But Fenella assumed it was because Maw knew about her full moon excursions.
Under her bed she kept a basket of dried herbs and potion-making supplies. Supplies she had used to fulfil some of Morveren’s contracts. She quietly slid out the basket and selected a bundle of each herb she needed. Sage for protection, valerian for sleep – intertwining them delicately into a magical bouquet.
She grabbed some matches off the hearth and a glass from the kitchen. She began burning and wafting the aromatic protection through the rooms of the house before leaving it to smoulder in the glass on the window sill.
Fenella cracked open the window lest the fumes harm the sleeping forms within. Once she was satisfied with her work she left to meet Morveren on the ridge.
Morveren was sitting cross legged on the crisp grass, bathed in the moon’s rays, her eyes closed, her hands cupped surreptitiously. Fenella dared not interrupt her, so she hovered several feet away waiting for something to happen. Morveren began singing;
“Lend your ears and send your heart
Hear my fears and let’s depart
Under sharp moon rays and open skies
An army I raise, my warriors arise
Shift your bones and head my pleas
From deep unknowns and tallest trees
Follow me to battle and take your fill
I ask thee to dismantle, to feed, to kill
Seek my revenge and you shall prosper
This I pledge, this I foster
Smite my foes and spare the young
For those who oppose will die unsung.”
Had Fenella not been under the protection of the singer she too would have picked up a weapon and joined the call to arms. She shook her head briskly once the mermaid had stopped her song in a bid to clear her head. It didn’t take long for the warriors to arrive. They flocked in droves to Morveren. Animals seen not uncommonly on warm summer nights; pipistrelle bats, Long-eared owls, Tawny owls, hares, squirrels, Pine Martens, Stoats, wild boar. Flanked by the more vicious looking; Grey wolves in their summer ochreous coats, Lynx slinking down from their camouflaged canopies, and Adders charged with the day’s warmth descended on the ridge, snarling and whooping in various tongues. All hungry and desperate after the slim pickings of the baking hot day.
Morveren hissed, clicked and snarled back at them. Fenella was both impressed and frightened. As she was about to release them upon the village an almighty roar came from the path. Morveren smiled mischievously.
“What was that?” Fenella asked, gripping her elbows tightly.
“You did not know your village had a lycanthrope?”
“A what?”
“A werewolf.”
“I did not! Who is it?”
Morveren laughed heartily.
“Who?” Fenella repeated anxiously.
“My best paying customer,” she replied finally, looking up to the Thane’s castle with a glint in her eye.
“No…” Fenella gasped.
“Yes.”
As the lycanthrope joined their ranks Morveren spoke briefly with the Thane in a language unknown to Fenella before sending them all off to battle. The unknowing villagers still slept soundly and unaware in their beds.
The animals swept silently down the hillside and into the village. Fenella’s heart was in her mouth, her eyes fixed on her family home, willing the creatures to stay away. She was grateful to see no evil breaking down her door. She turned to her mistress.
“What did you say to him?”
“To bring me your auntie,” Morveren said sweetly, “alive.”
Fenella and Morveren watched from the ridge as the animals slinked through the village sniffing and snuffling, flying in through open windows, scratching at doors and lying in wait.
The animals seemed to work together. The winged ones went into the house and harassed the sleeping forms. Forcing them to flee their homes into the open jaws of the creatures outside.
It was carnage. Fenella hated every minute of it. She looked at Morveren expecting to see her grinning maliciously, but she looked tired. It must have been hard for her, living all these years away from the sea and her family because she didn’t have her cap.
“Morveren?”
“Yes, bairn?”
“How did you lose your cap?”
“Lose it? It was stolen from me,” Morveren’s face contorted. “I was young, I thought I was in love. It was all a trap.”
“In love with a human?”
“He was the most beautiful human. His black curls and amber eyes like no merperson. He was a humble crofter, he had a warrior’s spirit… but a thief’s heart,” Morveren said softly.
“He stole your cap?”
“He asked that in return for marrying him and siring his children I would give him my cap so that I wouldn’t leave him. The way he said it made it sound so romantic, like he couldn’t bear for us to be apart.”
“But he was lying?” Fenella asked.
“Indeed, the moment I gave him my cap, he fled, back to his home, bragging of a treasure no man had ever owned.”
“Why didn’t you use magic to make him never leave you?”
“Because then how would I know his love was real? I could make anyone do anything, but where’s the fun in that?”
Fenella considered this. “I guess you are right. What was the man’s name?”
“Alastair Ariss.”
Fenella laughed childishly.
“What?” Morveren asked, snapping her head around in annoyance.
“Alastair means protector of mankind.”
Morveren laughed at the irony. “And Ariss, do you know where that originates?”
“I think it’s a clan name. I can find out.”
“Ta, bairn.”
“How long ago did Alastair Ariss steal your cap?”
“Almost a hundred years I’ve kept my seat here.”
Fenella thought about Morveren’s tragic past and vowed to help her once all this trouble was over. She was glad of the conversation because it kept her mind and her eyes off the bloodshed before her.
People were screaming, high, guttural screams. Fires were roaring all around – a candle knocked over in the height of summer was a deadly thing. It wasn’t uncommon in such close residences for wildfire to spread, especially if the foliage was crisp and dry, baked over days of intense summer sun. The perfect kindling. Fenella’s family slept on, oblivious to the carnage around them. Fenella latched onto the Thane. He was dragging her auntie towards them, his jaws clenched around her shin. Her scream was bloodcurdling, she clawed at the ground, trying to get back to her house. Fenella thought that it was pathetic until she heard the words through the pain.
“My baby!”
“Morveren…” Fenella said quietly, looking as though she was ready to rush to her cousins.
“I told him not to harm the bairns.”
“Then why is she screaming like that?”
“People will do anything to instil sympathy.” Morveren hissed, her lips retracting over her teeth horribly.
Fenella brushed off her mistress’ words and took off down the hill. Avoiding men wrestling with wolves, women shrieking at diving bats and lifeless bodies in pools of blood… She reached the house unharmed and tore inside, slamming the door firmly behind her. She closed the windows forcefully to exclude the flying horrors. Fenella turned around to see a horrific scene. There was blood everywhere, her cousins shaking and weeping under the bed.
“It’s alright, I’m here,” she cooed softly. “It’s Fenella, your cousin.”
“Ella!” a voice cried happily, followed by several tiny forms crawling out from under the bed.
“Where is Archie?”
“Maw’s bed.”
Fenella looked under the bloodied blankets and torn pillows hastily. Hoping to find her youngest cousin alive. She gasped.
“Ella?” one of the bairns asked.
“It’s okay, Mair, he’s alive.”
Fenella looked down. Her cousin Archie, eight months old, wasn’t crying, just looking at her distantly.
“Archie baby, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Fenella cooed, scooping him up in her arms and cradling him against her chest.
Archie gave a disgruntled cry, then she looked down and almost dropped him in disgust. He had started sprouting thick hair across his face and body. His stubby baby teeth lengthened and his jaw cracked horribly. Fenella placed him down on the bed and surveyed his body. He was bleeding from his thigh. A bite from a lycanthrope, on the night of a full moon… her baby cousin was transforming. She covered him with a blanket, hiding him from view.
“Follow me.” Fenella called to her remaining cousins, grabbing as many tiny hands as she could manage.
“Where are we going?”
“What about Archie?”
“Where’s Maw?”
“Shush! Keep quiet, follow me, eyes on the ground. Don’t look up!” ordered Fenella.
Fenella took a deep breath and kicked open the door, dragging the tiny bairns with her. Across the path towards her family home. It might have been the reflection from the burning buildings, but Fenella could have sworn the trident brand was glowing. While the cousins were near her they weren’t attacked by Morveren’s army. The mark of her mistress did its job. Fenella opened the door quietly and pushed the bairns in. She pulled back the covers of her bed and beckoned them over.
“Come, sleep here, it’s safe,” Fenella patted the bed. “See, my brothers and sisters are still asleep.” Fenella pointed to the other bed where her family was snoring blissfully.
The children nodded sleepily, looking longingly between their cousins and the soft, clean sheets of Fenella’s bed. Once the cousins were safely tucked up in bed and promised Fenella that they wouldn’t leave until she came to get them, she left, back through the dwindling battle to her mistress.
She couldn’t bear to think of Archie. He would be safely bundled up ‘til morning, right?
She assumed that since Auntie had been captured and the other women were reprimanded that Morveren's revenge was nearly over.
Fenella heard Morveren singing once more. The gathered animals dispersed as quickly as they had arrived.
“Fenella?”
“Yes?”
“The bairn. He is a wolf!” Morveren exclaimed, stroking the tiny wolf pup on her lap. He must have escaped Fenella’s bed when he heard the howls of his sire in the heat of battle.
“It would appear so.”
“I’m terribly sorry.”
“Yeah, me too,” Fenella stated harshly. She was fed up; all she wanted was for her family to be well and without want.
She looked around her – feeling ashamed and selfish, because without her none of this would have happened. She couldn’t blame Morveren. She had been fair and honourable with her revenge and fulfilling Fenella’s contract. She blamed herself.
“The Thane has agreed to take him as his ward,” Morveren said.
“That’s good news at least.”
“What is wrong, Fenella?”
“I’m tired,” she replied, knowing that if she said what she was really feeling she might be struck down where she stood.
“Go now, then, and sleep.”
“What will happen to my village?”
“Only the criminals have perished tonight, lassie. Others have suffered, but they will live, they will rebuild, they will remember.”
“What did you do to my auntie?”
“The Thane took care of that for me, after I had a few words with her,” Morveren said mischievously.
“I’ll find your cap.” Fenella promised sleepily. She felt her eyes closing and her body relaxing. Was Morveren weaving her magic on her?
***
Fenella woke up late the next day, coated in sweat from the midday heat. Her family was busying around her, bringing items of clothing and belongings for their cousins. So suddenly orphaned.
“Good afternoon,” Maw sang, “a letter for you.”
Fenella stretched and rubbed the magic-induced sleep from her eyes. The letter was from the Thane. He wanted an audience.
Fenella groaned.
“What is it?” Maw asked, frowning slightly.
“I have to go.”
“You be careful,” she warned.
“Always,” Fenella lied.
Fenella washed and brushed her hair, tying it up into a bun – a respectable hairdo. She dressed in her Sunday clothes; a smart white dress with polished black shoes.
Once ready, she walked up the gravel track to the Thane’s castle anxiously wondering what he wanted. She could only guess that it had to do with Morveren. He either wanted to beg her to keep his lycanthropy secret or talk to her about her mistress. She wondered how much of last night he could remember, because she didn’t know much about his condition to know for sure.
Gripping the letter tightly in her hand she walked into her employer’s abode. Wondering where he would be. She was sweating by the time she reached the gates, only a short distance away from her house.
“You lost, miss?” a guard asked, looking her up and down.
“I’m to meet with the Thane,” she replied, brandishing the letter.
“Follow me, then.” The guard didn’t question the letter.
Fenella didn’t know whether this was a good sign. Had the Thane told the guards to expect her? Was she to be arrested for her part in the slaughter last night? The guard took her up the cold, stone staircase to the second floor. Down a long dimly lit corridor and towards an eerie looking door at the end of the corridor.
“Here we are. The Thane’s study.”
“Thank you.”
Fenella knocked loudly on the heavy wooden door. She didn’t have to wait long before a deep, hoarse voice instructed her to enter. She pushed open the door and stepped into the bright, airy study. It was lined with large, beautifully ornate windows that looked out onto the village proudly.
“You must be Fenella?” the tall, darkly handsome man behind the thick desk asked.
“I am, sir.”
“I am the Thane. I understand you are one of my servants?”
“Yes, sir.” Fenella replied, her eyes lowered to the Thane’s feet.
“And you also work for the enchantress?”
Fenella paused before answering, wondering if she was talking herself into a trap. “I do, sir.”
“Then you know about my… affliction?”
“I do, sir, but I won’t tell a soul. You have agreed to look after my cousin?”
“Yes,” Fenella replied hesitantly, “for what exactly?”
“Revenge, my sweet.”
Fenella saw the murderous glint in Morveren’s eye. She knew then that nothing good was to be committed that night. She nodded tightly and dropped her gaze.
“Don’t worry, your household will not be affected,” Morveren promised.
“I’m not worried.”
“Then let us go.”
Fenella led Morveren to her village. They walked purposefully, ready to reap hell. The summer sky was darkening and was filled with thunderous clouds. A summer storm was brewing. It was almost as if it knew what was about to happen. The thick warm rain droplets started to fall, soaking the pair’s thin clothes. Fenella was glad for the coolness as she had run several miles already that night.
“So what are we going to do when we get there?” Fenella asked.
“Your auntie, and the other women, they need to suffer for what they have done to me.”
“What are we going to do to them? Magic? Murder?”
“I don’t know yet,” Morveren admitted. “I have limited magic in this form.”
“Alright.”
“I need you to tell me everything you know about your auntie and the women that aided her.”
Fenella told her everything while they walked. About Auntie’s life, the family, the women she controlled and their obsession with the church. Morveren listened dutifully, without interruption. Fenella found it easy to talk about her auntie because of the resentment she felt for her when Maw was ill. She vowed that she would look after her horrible cousins if anything happened to their maw.
“You have no love for this woman?” Morveren asked.
“None.”
“I thought humans loved their family members fearlessly.”
“We do, I do… but that woman is no family,” Fenella said bitterly.
“I see.” Morveren went quiet. She had grown fond of her little servant and felt doubly enraged with the woman’s existence.
“The bairns, nothing will happen to them?”
“I can’t promise that.”
“Please,” Fenella begged, clutching to Morveren, clawing her arms and pulling her to a stop.
Morveren decided to humour her human companion. “You care for them, why?”
“It isn’t their fault they were raised by a madwoman; they haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I understand you humans less and less with every conversation we have, bairn.”
“That’s okay. I understand them enough for the both of us.”
“You must remember to burn sage in the window of your home when we begin. My friends will know to leave it undisturbed, and valerian to ensure they stay asleep.”
“I have a stockpile as you asked. What will happen to the other villagers that weren’t involved?” Fenella asked.
“Call it a lesson, but I’ll focus my powers on the women who wronged me. Tell me their names.”
Fenella told her.
“Go now, protect your family, and meet me on the ridge once you have done.”
“Will I need to hide?” asked Fenella.
“No, you have my mark. It is a protection of the highest kind. Animals and supernatural beings wouldn’t dare mess with you while you bear my mark.”
“Alright.”
“It is with you forever, as a token of my appreciation,” Morveren said with a small nod of appreciation.
“Ta, Morveren.”
Fenella was sure then that the Maighdean-mara had come to care for her. She nodded once more and sneaked through the silent, sleepy houses to her family home.
Since her illness passed, Maw had allowed Fenella her own bed. She said that it was because she was nearly a grown woman and it wouldn’t do to share with the bairns. But Fenella assumed it was because Maw knew about her full moon excursions.
Under her bed she kept a basket of dried herbs and potion-making supplies. Supplies she had used to fulfil some of Morveren’s contracts. She quietly slid out the basket and selected a bundle of each herb she needed. Sage for protection, valerian for sleep – intertwining them delicately into a magical bouquet.
She grabbed some matches off the hearth and a glass from the kitchen. She began burning and wafting the aromatic protection through the rooms of the house before leaving it to smoulder in the glass on the window sill.
Fenella cracked open the window lest the fumes harm the sleeping forms within. Once she was satisfied with her work she left to meet Morveren on the ridge.
Morveren was sitting cross legged on the crisp grass, bathed in the moon’s rays, her eyes closed, her hands cupped surreptitiously. Fenella dared not interrupt her, so she hovered several feet away waiting for something to happen. Morveren began singing;
“Lend your ears and send your heart
Hear my fears and let’s depart
Under sharp moon rays and open skies
An army I raise, my warriors arise
Shift your bones and head my pleas
From deep unknowns and tallest trees
Follow me to battle and take your fill
I ask thee to dismantle, to feed, to kill
Seek my revenge and you shall prosper
This I pledge, this I foster
Smite my foes and spare the young
For those who oppose will die unsung.”
Had Fenella not been under the protection of the singer she too would have picked up a weapon and joined the call to arms. She shook her head briskly once the mermaid had stopped her song in a bid to clear her head. It didn’t take long for the warriors to arrive. They flocked in droves to Morveren. Animals seen not uncommonly on warm summer nights; pipistrelle bats, Long-eared owls, Tawny owls, hares, squirrels, Pine Martens, Stoats, wild boar. Flanked by the more vicious looking; Grey wolves in their summer ochreous coats, Lynx slinking down from their camouflaged canopies, and Adders charged with the day’s warmth descended on the ridge, snarling and whooping in various tongues. All hungry and desperate after the slim pickings of the baking hot day.
Morveren hissed, clicked and snarled back at them. Fenella was both impressed and frightened. As she was about to release them upon the village an almighty roar came from the path. Morveren smiled mischievously.
“What was that?” Fenella asked, gripping her elbows tightly.
“You did not know your village had a lycanthrope?”
“A what?”
“A werewolf.”
“I did not! Who is it?”
Morveren laughed heartily.
“Who?” Fenella repeated anxiously.
“My best paying customer,” she replied finally, looking up to the Thane’s castle with a glint in her eye.
“No…” Fenella gasped.
“Yes.”
As the lycanthrope joined their ranks Morveren spoke briefly with the Thane in a language unknown to Fenella before sending them all off to battle. The unknowing villagers still slept soundly and unaware in their beds.
The animals swept silently down the hillside and into the village. Fenella’s heart was in her mouth, her eyes fixed on her family home, willing the creatures to stay away. She was grateful to see no evil breaking down her door. She turned to her mistress.
“What did you say to him?”
“To bring me your auntie,” Morveren said sweetly, “alive.”
Fenella and Morveren watched from the ridge as the animals slinked through the village sniffing and snuffling, flying in through open windows, scratching at doors and lying in wait.
The animals seemed to work together. The winged ones went into the house and harassed the sleeping forms. Forcing them to flee their homes into the open jaws of the creatures outside.
It was carnage. Fenella hated every minute of it. She looked at Morveren expecting to see her grinning maliciously, but she looked tired. It must have been hard for her, living all these years away from the sea and her family because she didn’t have her cap.
“Morveren?”
“Yes, bairn?”
“How did you lose your cap?”
“Lose it? It was stolen from me,” Morveren’s face contorted. “I was young, I thought I was in love. It was all a trap.”
“In love with a human?”
“He was the most beautiful human. His black curls and amber eyes like no merperson. He was a humble crofter, he had a warrior’s spirit… but a thief’s heart,” Morveren said softly.
“He stole your cap?”
“He asked that in return for marrying him and siring his children I would give him my cap so that I wouldn’t leave him. The way he said it made it sound so romantic, like he couldn’t bear for us to be apart.”
“But he was lying?” Fenella asked.
“Indeed, the moment I gave him my cap, he fled, back to his home, bragging of a treasure no man had ever owned.”
“Why didn’t you use magic to make him never leave you?”
“Because then how would I know his love was real? I could make anyone do anything, but where’s the fun in that?”
Fenella considered this. “I guess you are right. What was the man’s name?”
“Alastair Ariss.”
Fenella laughed childishly.
“What?” Morveren asked, snapping her head around in annoyance.
“Alastair means protector of mankind.”
Morveren laughed at the irony. “And Ariss, do you know where that originates?”
“I think it’s a clan name. I can find out.”
“Ta, bairn.”
“How long ago did Alastair Ariss steal your cap?”
“Almost a hundred years I’ve kept my seat here.”
Fenella thought about Morveren’s tragic past and vowed to help her once all this trouble was over. She was glad of the conversation because it kept her mind and her eyes off the bloodshed before her.
People were screaming, high, guttural screams. Fires were roaring all around – a candle knocked over in the height of summer was a deadly thing. It wasn’t uncommon in such close residences for wildfire to spread, especially if the foliage was crisp and dry, baked over days of intense summer sun. The perfect kindling. Fenella’s family slept on, oblivious to the carnage around them. Fenella latched onto the Thane. He was dragging her auntie towards them, his jaws clenched around her shin. Her scream was bloodcurdling, she clawed at the ground, trying to get back to her house. Fenella thought that it was pathetic until she heard the words through the pain.
“My baby!”
“Morveren…” Fenella said quietly, looking as though she was ready to rush to her cousins.
“I told him not to harm the bairns.”
“Then why is she screaming like that?”
“People will do anything to instil sympathy.” Morveren hissed, her lips retracting over her teeth horribly.
Fenella brushed off her mistress’ words and took off down the hill. Avoiding men wrestling with wolves, women shrieking at diving bats and lifeless bodies in pools of blood… She reached the house unharmed and tore inside, slamming the door firmly behind her. She closed the windows forcefully to exclude the flying horrors. Fenella turned around to see a horrific scene. There was blood everywhere, her cousins shaking and weeping under the bed.
“It’s alright, I’m here,” she cooed softly. “It’s Fenella, your cousin.”
“Ella!” a voice cried happily, followed by several tiny forms crawling out from under the bed.
“Where is Archie?”
“Maw’s bed.”
Fenella looked under the bloodied blankets and torn pillows hastily. Hoping to find her youngest cousin alive. She gasped.
“Ella?” one of the bairns asked.
“It’s okay, Mair, he’s alive.”
Fenella looked down. Her cousin Archie, eight months old, wasn’t crying, just looking at her distantly.
“Archie baby, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Fenella cooed, scooping him up in her arms and cradling him against her chest.
Archie gave a disgruntled cry, then she looked down and almost dropped him in disgust. He had started sprouting thick hair across his face and body. His stubby baby teeth lengthened and his jaw cracked horribly. Fenella placed him down on the bed and surveyed his body. He was bleeding from his thigh. A bite from a lycanthrope, on the night of a full moon… her baby cousin was transforming. She covered him with a blanket, hiding him from view.
“Follow me.” Fenella called to her remaining cousins, grabbing as many tiny hands as she could manage.
“Where are we going?”
“What about Archie?”
“Where’s Maw?”
“Shush! Keep quiet, follow me, eyes on the ground. Don’t look up!” ordered Fenella.
Fenella took a deep breath and kicked open the door, dragging the tiny bairns with her. Across the path towards her family home. It might have been the reflection from the burning buildings, but Fenella could have sworn the trident brand was glowing. While the cousins were near her they weren’t attacked by Morveren’s army. The mark of her mistress did its job. Fenella opened the door quietly and pushed the bairns in. She pulled back the covers of her bed and beckoned them over.
“Come, sleep here, it’s safe,” Fenella patted the bed. “See, my brothers and sisters are still asleep.” Fenella pointed to the other bed where her family was snoring blissfully.
The children nodded sleepily, looking longingly between their cousins and the soft, clean sheets of Fenella’s bed. Once the cousins were safely tucked up in bed and promised Fenella that they wouldn’t leave until she came to get them, she left, back through the dwindling battle to her mistress.
She couldn’t bear to think of Archie. He would be safely bundled up ‘til morning, right?
She assumed that since Auntie had been captured and the other women were reprimanded that Morveren's revenge was nearly over.
Fenella heard Morveren singing once more. The gathered animals dispersed as quickly as they had arrived.
“Fenella?”
“Yes?”
“The bairn. He is a wolf!” Morveren exclaimed, stroking the tiny wolf pup on her lap. He must have escaped Fenella’s bed when he heard the howls of his sire in the heat of battle.
“It would appear so.”
“I’m terribly sorry.”
“Yeah, me too,” Fenella stated harshly. She was fed up; all she wanted was for her family to be well and without want.
She looked around her – feeling ashamed and selfish, because without her none of this would have happened. She couldn’t blame Morveren. She had been fair and honourable with her revenge and fulfilling Fenella’s contract. She blamed herself.
“The Thane has agreed to take him as his ward,” Morveren said.
“That’s good news at least.”
“What is wrong, Fenella?”
“I’m tired,” she replied, knowing that if she said what she was really feeling she might be struck down where she stood.
“Go now, then, and sleep.”
“What will happen to my village?”
“Only the criminals have perished tonight, lassie. Others have suffered, but they will live, they will rebuild, they will remember.”
“What did you do to my auntie?”
“The Thane took care of that for me, after I had a few words with her,” Morveren said mischievously.
“I’ll find your cap.” Fenella promised sleepily. She felt her eyes closing and her body relaxing. Was Morveren weaving her magic on her?
***
Fenella woke up late the next day, coated in sweat from the midday heat. Her family was busying around her, bringing items of clothing and belongings for their cousins. So suddenly orphaned.
“Good afternoon,” Maw sang, “a letter for you.”
Fenella stretched and rubbed the magic-induced sleep from her eyes. The letter was from the Thane. He wanted an audience.
Fenella groaned.
“What is it?” Maw asked, frowning slightly.
“I have to go.”
“You be careful,” she warned.
“Always,” Fenella lied.
Fenella washed and brushed her hair, tying it up into a bun – a respectable hairdo. She dressed in her Sunday clothes; a smart white dress with polished black shoes.
Once ready, she walked up the gravel track to the Thane’s castle anxiously wondering what he wanted. She could only guess that it had to do with Morveren. He either wanted to beg her to keep his lycanthropy secret or talk to her about her mistress. She wondered how much of last night he could remember, because she didn’t know much about his condition to know for sure.
Gripping the letter tightly in her hand she walked into her employer’s abode. Wondering where he would be. She was sweating by the time she reached the gates, only a short distance away from her house.
“You lost, miss?” a guard asked, looking her up and down.
“I’m to meet with the Thane,” she replied, brandishing the letter.
“Follow me, then.” The guard didn’t question the letter.
Fenella didn’t know whether this was a good sign. Had the Thane told the guards to expect her? Was she to be arrested for her part in the slaughter last night? The guard took her up the cold, stone staircase to the second floor. Down a long dimly lit corridor and towards an eerie looking door at the end of the corridor.
“Here we are. The Thane’s study.”
“Thank you.”
Fenella knocked loudly on the heavy wooden door. She didn’t have to wait long before a deep, hoarse voice instructed her to enter. She pushed open the door and stepped into the bright, airy study. It was lined with large, beautifully ornate windows that looked out onto the village proudly.
“You must be Fenella?” the tall, darkly handsome man behind the thick desk asked.
“I am, sir.”
“I am the Thane. I understand you are one of my servants?”
“Yes, sir.” Fenella replied, her eyes lowered to the Thane’s feet.
“And you also work for the enchantress?”
Fenella paused before answering, wondering if she was talking herself into a trap. “I do, sir.”
“Then you know about my… affliction?”
“I do, sir, but I won’t tell a soul. You have agreed to look after my cousin?”
