Hills of heather and bon.., p.1
Hills of Heather and Bone, page 1
Hills of Heather and Bone
K.E. ANDREWS
Copyright
K.E.Andrews has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the copyright.
Editors:
Copyeditor: Maddy D. https://www.fiverr.com/maddy216?source=order_page_summary_seller_link
Proofreader: Maddy D.
Map Design: Sheridan Falkenberry @ancientmariner115
Cover Art: Jade Mae Yee https://www.artstation.com/jademaeyee/profile
Cover Design: K.E. Andrews
Copyright © 2023 by K. E. Andrews
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
1. Daffodil
2. Azalea
3. Marigold
4. Mistletoe
5. Rue
6. Thistle
7. Snowdrop
8. Witch Hazel
9. Whin
10. Primrose
11. Nasturtium
12. Bluebell
13. Heather
14. Daisy
15. Forget-me-not
16. Dandelion
17. Cornflower
18. Nettle
19. Wormwood
20. Water Lily
21. Yarrow
22. Thyme
23. Elderflower
24. Epilogue
Glossary
Acknowledgments
Want to know what kind of bloodgifted you are?
About the Author
Books By K.E.Andrews
Please be aware that this book contains some scenes of violence, death, depression, mentions of miscarriage, birthing scenes, suicidal thoughts, suicide, and cannibalism.
For those who grieve and for those whose tears have watered many flowers
Death hums beneath the dirt as I tear up a web of ground-ivy from the bed of lettuce. Purple blooms are set like gems against green leaves. Its roots are tangled around a mouse skull. I run my dirty fingers across the yellowed eye sockets. Flashes of scurrying through plants and sunlight trickle out before the fearful image of shadowy wings and pain end the wafer-thin memories. The squeaking, wordless voice of the mouse calls to the power in my blood, tugging at me to collect its bones scattered around the garden and make it whole again.
A peck jabs my left hand by my wedding ring and I wince. The sunlight comes back into focus through the trees as I blink. Morhenna growls, canting her red-combed head to give me a beady stare. I’m not pulling the weeds fast enough for her liking. The old gods would find the black and white speckled chicken an imposing contender to their pantheon. She thinks she walks with the gods, far above us mortals. None of the chickens back home were this spiteful. I thought she would have softened toward me when I saved her from that fox last year, but no. It somehow made her hate me even more.
I pull my hand away, tracing the primroses carved along the smooth heatherwood band. Untangling the roots from the mouse’s skull, I slip it into the pocket of my long blue skirt and gather the rest of the weeds. Percy’s voice echoes through my head with the names of different plants as I sort them in the basket. Dandelions for salads and tea. Lambsquarter for pain. Chickweeds go well with dandelions. I chew on some lambsquarter, hoping it’ll help my knees.
Over the years, Percy’s taught me about every seed, sapling, and flower we’ve encountered since we got married—he even made a book with pictures to help me identify them. He gets this look in his eye that spills past the lenses of his glasses when he touches a leaf or coaxes seedlings to life. As a rootsower, he hears their songs in ways I can’t understand, just as he can’t understand the voices of bones.
A raven caws from the woods beyond the garden wall. Thin claws dig into my shoulder through my tunic, and a wing brushes my ear. Siobhen, my shadow. The chicken purrs and tugs at a lock of black hair that’s escaped from my hair ribbon. I think she prefers me over Percy because when I stand, it’s the closest she gets to touching the sky—and is out of Morhenna’s reach.
My right knee creaks when I rise from my crouch, the ache moving up my stiff calves. It’s only a matter of time before my hands start hurting, too.
“A storm’s coming soon,” I whisper to the chicken. Percy tells me I sound old when I say that instead of like a thirty-year-old woman.
Siobhen grips my shoulder as I go down the rows of the garden. The basket around my arm is laden with greens, potatoes, carrots, and herbs. The other two chickens, Fergus and Fiona, dart between the tomatoes and the rhubarb. Fergus ruffles his trailing tail feathers before stalking after a sídhe with four pearlescent wings. The sídhe’s small, lizard-like body ribbons through the air, tail scales shimmering. Morhenna pecks at the ivy flowers, but I still feel her gaze on me as I head toward the house.
Among the chaos of vegetation, there’s an order to the garden’s layout—medicinal plants closest to the house. The middle plot is used for growing food. Herbs thrive near the chicken coop. My favorite is the area filled with an assortment of plants near the garden gate—the Random Plot—where Percy grows different plants he’s cross-pollinated and seeds he’s altered.
I take in the house with its sagging roof and squat chimney, nestled in this garden paradise, and hold the contentment tightly. Flowering vines hug the stone walls encircling our garden. Bees drift between the crimson poppies and the flame flowers. A green butterfly lands on the axe by the stump where I chop wood. I can imagine growing old here, living without fear or always looking over my shoulder.
The curtain in the open bedroom window ripples in the breeze, and a mop of brown hair bobs above the windowsill. Percy hunches over the writing desk inside, his eyeglasses teetering on the edge of his nose. His forehead’s a wrinkled canvas as he tries to squeeze out some thought he can’t piece together. A streak of dried ink darkens his earlobe where he’s been tugging at it.
I set the basket on the sill, my frame taking up almost the whole window. Siobhen repositions herself on my shoulder. I make sure not to knock off the walnut shell halves that had been filled with syrup this morning for the sídhe. My parents said the sídhe bring good luck and might clean your house if you give them gifts, but I’ve never seen them clean anything. Usually, I find bits of food missing or a nest they’ve made in the ceiling beams of the healing room because they like the flowers, but it’s best not to anger them. A swarm of angry sídhe is an unlucky thing to encounter without a bit of iron to protect you.
“Stuck?” I ask Percy. My gaze darts over the sketches of limbs and organs with his looping handwriting beside them scattered around him.
Percy looks up, blinking away whatever swirls behind his brown eyes. His smile is a crooked crescent. “With Siobhen on your shoulder, you look like one of Arianrhod’s messengers,” he says and pushes back the sleeves of his cream-colored shirt.
“The Goddess of Death’s messengers use ravens instead of chickens as their Eyes,” I tell him.
“Who’s to say they didn’t have other birds when ravens were in short supply?” Percy rests his head in his hand. The metal knotwork pendant of a tree with roots threaded around a hand—the symbols of the gods Beathag and Kester—lays against his chest from a woven cord. “Did you stop your work so that you could stare at me?”
I hold up a dandelion. “Gathered some carrots and potatoes for a pie tonight and pulled weeds. I thought I’d see what you were doing and if you needed anything.”
Percy takes the flower and sticks it behind his ear. The yellow petals unfurl more as soft green light pulses from his fingertips. “One might think you have feelings for me, Morana.”
I tap his nose, leaving a smear of dirt behind. “I should hope so since we are married.”
The corners of his eyes crinkle as his grin broadens. “Glad to know that after ten years you haven’t grown bored of me. Maybe this will help me get unstuck.”
He stretches across the desk to kiss me. Warmth blooms in my chest. We live where our hearts beat, and this is where mine rests—in this walled garden with this man who can stir my soul with a smile.
His fingers brush my jaw before he glances back at his work. “Thought that would work, but it was worth it regardless,” he says, pushing up his glasses. “I finished treating my patients for the day and wanted to work on this. These diagrams are from an ancient proposal for regrowing limbs and have me stumped. Very few fleshmenders have the skill to attempt such a thing.”
“Are you thinking it’s still possible to attempt?” I ask. He’s been thinking about this problem for years. I’ve often woken up to the crinkle of papers left on the bed and him mumbling about bones and muscles in his sleep.
“Knitting different layers of flesh together while rebuilding the delicate parts is the challenge. Fleshmenders can repair organs and sections of flesh, but recreating a whole organ or limb is more complicated and requires much more energy from the patient and the bloodgifted. If done incorrectly, it could harm the patient or create dead limbs,” he says, running a finger along the metacarpal bones of a sketched hand. “Still, I think it’s possible to determine the correct method of flesh restoration. But there’s the matter of experimenting…”
I nod, grasping part of what he says. Bloodgifted can peer into the fa bric of the world and grasp the chaotic threads to bring order to the elements. Percy strives to understand that order, even after he left the Acadamaidh. Even here on the fringes of Errigal, he’s always learning something new to improve his fleshmending abilities. As easily as he can make a withered plant healthy again, he can stitch skin back together and ease any pain. He’s a rarity, a doublegifted.
While bloodgifted like rootsowers and fleshmenders can create order and bring about life, I wonder what purpose boneweavers serve by moving the dead. People call my magic an affront against life and that it’s dangerous. If that’s the case, why does it feel soothing when I use it?
A sharp jab at my shin makes me turn to find Morhenna tugging at my skirt, growling. She has a soft spot for Percy and sees me as competition. I’m sure if she could smite me, she would. Morhenna hisses and tries to jump onto the windowsill from the stump. Startled, Siobhen darts through the open window onto the desk in a swirl of speckled feathers and fearful trills, her wing smacking my face.
Percy catches her before she knocks over the ink bottle. “Morhenna is in fine form today,” he says, cradling Siobhen. Gray and black feathers drift across the desk and scattered papers.
Morhenna’s claws dig into my hand as I shoo her away. “That’s one way of putting it. I think Cadhal knew her true nature when she gave her to us. A fine way to repay you for healing her broken leg,” I tell him.
Percy hands Siobhen back to me through the window. The chicken stares in the direction of Morhenna’s squawks. “She’s a good egg layer. Nothing will compare to Grizel, though. I still miss that goat.”
Tucking the chicken under my arm and grabbing the basket, I head for the well. Morhenna remains by the window. Percy speaks to her, and she puffs up her feathers. I swear her comb gets redder, as if she’s blushing.
I set Siobhen down and pull up a bucket of cold water. Grabbing the soap bar on the stump beside it, I scrub the dirt from my hands. The smell of lavender and honey hits my nose as I wash the suds away. The scratches along my arm crisscross older, pale scars. I draw another bucket of water and start to clean the vegetables.
A door slams in the house. “Healer Bracken! We need you!” someone shouts from inside.
I look up from cleaning the potatoes. That sounds like Athol, the farmer who lives near the rapeseed fields. Percy’s the only healer here in Àitesìol, so he sees anyone who comes to our door, no matter the time.
A prickle runs along my neck, like someone is standing too close. The sensation tugs at me, tasting like damp ash, like the mouse skull in my pocket. The faint pulse of death—of something dying.
Leaving the vegetables and my basket, I dry my hands on my handkerchief before heading into the house. No doubt Percy’s already gone to see who it is. I grab my dark robe from the hook in the kitchen and throw them on. I gather bowls and fresh water from the kitchen that Percy will need. The prickle of death comes from the next room, and I resist the urge to touch the skull as I head for the healing room.
The smell of burning sage permeates the healing room as I cross the threshold, my blood thrumming. Percy’s already dressed in the red robe he wears when he works. The prickling gets stronger as the presence of death seeps from the large, limp figure Athol and his young daughter, Lileas, struggle to carry between them. Aodh, Athol’s twenty-three-year-old son.
“Aodh collapsed in the field,” Athol gasps. The older man’s red hair is damp against his sweaty forehead. “Dinnae ken how long he was there, but he’s not wakin’ up.”
“Lay him on the table,” Percy tells them.
Grabbing Aodh’s legs from Lileas, Percy and Athol lay him on the large table. Aodh moans, a hollowness pressing on his pale face. Lileas flinches as the body thumps against the dark wood. The smell of sweat and wet earth breaks through the sage, and I shut the door.
“Was Aodh ill before he went to work?” Percy asks, one hand going to Aodh’s neck to check his pulse, his other pushing back his eyelids.
Athol hovers near the table, worry bending his whole frame. He isn’t a tall man, but now he looks much smaller. Lileas squeezes his hand, her other clenching the front of her brown skirt.
“He was complain’ about stomach pains for a few days and threw up last night, but I thought it was ‘cause he was out drinkin’,” Athol says. “He seemed fine when he left. Lileas found him when he didnae come up fae the field.”
Percy nods. I lay everything on the table by the wall and approach them. “Please hold his head still and tilt his chin back,” he says to me while removing Aodh’s tunic.
Aodh’s clammy skin burns beneath my fingers, his breaths rattling. The yellow light of Percy’s magic flickers beneath his fingers while his palms hover over Aodh’s broad chest, moving up his neck. Aodh twists with a guttural cry when Percy touches his right side. Athol’s face is drawn as Lileas presses closer to him.
“His appendix has burst. He’s septic, but I’ll do what I can to remove it,” Percy tells Athol and Lileas. “His lungs are struggling to take in air.”
Percy glances back at me, and I recognize the tension along his brow. I keep the worry from my face as I nod, confirming what he already knows. Death creeps over Aodh like a shroud, his pulse fast and fluttering beneath the skin that’s growing colder. An ashen taste hits the back of my tongue. It’s moments like these where fleshmenders and boneweavers can sense the same thing—death’s approach. While I’m drawn to it, Percy will try to keep it at bay.
Percy slips his wedding ring into his pocket and grabs a bowl of water, a knife, rags, and jars of dried herbs on the shelves. He breaks off leaves from the different plants growing on the walls. He mixes ingredients in a bowl, grinding them up before uncorking one of the vials and pouring the dark liquid into the mixture. There’s a spark of green that drifts through the herbs and plants as he infuses a bit of magic to make the draught more potent.
I lift Aodh’s head and ignore the ache burning through my knees. Aodh’s chest rises to try and grasp what breath he can. Athol is praying to Beathag and Arianrhod as he braces against Lileas. While I’ve seen death up close my whole life, known its bite and soothing ebb against me, watching someone see their loved one fading never gets easier. I whisper my own prayer to Arianrhod to stay her hand even though my power is hungry for the stories in the bones.
“Aodh, if you can hear me, you need to swallow this,” Percy says.
He tilts the contents of the bowl into Aodh’s mouth. Some liquid dribbles past the man’s lips as he sputters and struggles to swallow. Aodh groans and tries to push him away, but his arms drop back down to his sides like they’ve been cut. It’d be easier for Percy to use his bloodgift to sedate Aodh, but that’d be one more thing for him to concentrate on.
“Hold him down and keep him as still as possible until the sedative takes hold,” Percy tells Athol and me, gesturing for me to stand across from him.
A gray sheen seeps across Aodh’s tan skin, and the tug grows stronger. Aodh’s quick pulse thrums up my fingers as they rest against his stubbly jaw, intertwining with my heartbeat. Each strained breath clenches at my lungs. His pulse is mine, and I’ll share his breath until it ceases or if he continues to remain here with the living.
“How close is he?” Percy whispers to me.
“Close. There’s something else, isn’t there?” I mumble, wrestling with my bloodgift to keep it from spilling out.
“It’s his lungs. There’s a bit of fluid and several cysts that are causing pockets of air, which is making it difficult for him to breathe. Those have been there longer, and I can’t deal with those until I remove the infection and get him stable. I can only help him breathe while I stop the toxins from killing his tissues and organs.”
