Nine
DEMAIRO HAD NEVER really had much to do with trees. For eight years he’d lived on the island, which had only a small oak grove and a hedge of hazel bushes to break up the line of scrubby grasses and gorse thickets that roamed from cliff to cliff. He’d been used to a constant wind, screeching seabirds and the ceaseless sounds of the sea, ranging from a sigh to a roar at any given moment.
Not that it was quiet here. No, after almost two moons on the farm, he had learned all about the different range of noises that filled his new surroundings: the lowing of the cows, grunts of the pigs, cackling chickens and complaining sheep; the babble of the river, that sent a strange chill through him; the restless wind that ran cool fingers through the leaves and branches, even when he could feel no hint of it below.
There were different birds here, ones that cheeped and twittered, and so many insects all buzzing and flapping and humming. Then there were the frogs that sang in puddles and ponds, and the toads that appeared like lumpy stones out of nowhere and vanished just as swiftly, like spirits of the earth.
It was a whole new world, and slowly, as Demairo woke from his fog of sadness, he began to explore it. Sometimes his cousins and the farm dogs came with him, but mostly he escaped alone. Oh, it wasn’t that he didn’t like his new cousins – most of them anyway – but for a boy who’d grown up with only one, the sudden pack of them was unnerving.
So Demairo escaped as often as he could, but only after his morning chores were done. He’d watched his mother struggle for too many years with too many tasks to ever skip out on his own portion. Today he’d already milked the cows, checked the sheep and helped gather the eggs, so he’d decided he was now free to wander at will, it being someone else’s turn to watch the herd today.
As he slipped away from the others playing games in the grazing fields, Demairo crept silently from one tree shadow to another, getting gradually further away. Then he paused to listen.
The natural sounds of the woodland surrounded him, but he blocked them out for now and tried to hear other things. The cheerful cries of his cousins behind him sounded like the shrieking gulls he’d once known so well, while at the bottom of the slope, somewhere downriver, his aunts were singing as they washed clothes. A thin, enthusiastic voice piped along with them: Ceri, fitting in as always.
Demairo smiled, pleased that his cousin sounded so happy. Who knew she would find chores so fun? When he thought back to the difficulty his mam had had in getting her to work —
Demairo’s smile faded on a wave of hurt that settled like a rock in his chest. It happened every time he thought of his mother, so he forced his memories back and turned away from his aunts and cousins. Rubbing the ache in his chest, he skidded down the rest of the slope and headed upstream. Before long he reached a place where an enormous jumble of boulders strung out in a line across the water.
Above them the river formed a deep, silent pool, escaping the stones’ grip through tiny silver streams. Below them the river formed a shallow, swift-running waterfall, where dippers bobbed and darted, catching insects and taking them back to their nests.
Some days Demairo liked to lie on his belly and watch them, marvelling at the daring of such small and fragile creatures, bob, bob, bobbing to their own inner song. Other times he hid amongst the bushes to watch the upper pool, where bright kingfishers sometimes flashed and fished, and where he’d even glimpsed a sleek otter twice.
Not today. Today the water made him jittery, being too close to his memories, so instead of finding a place to lie and watch, Demairo hopped from boulder to boulder, making his way across the water without once getting wet. Then he ran. Bare feet pounding over dirt, roots and rotting leaves, Demairo left the quietly tamed lands of the farm behind and pushed on into the cool, wild dark of the woods.
Great beech trees rose up around him, their proudly straight trunks lifting up to broad leaves that blocked out most of the light. Little grew here around their great forms, leaving space for Demairo to run. He did so, pushing past the pain of his memories until he was breathless and laughing, and so, so free.
He ran and ran until the woodland floor started to rise, and the beeches turned to birch and ash, their slender forms parting around the grand oaks who squatted in dells and groves, spreading their wide, gnarled arms like old men and women stubbornly making a space for themselves and refusing to change like everything else in this wild and wonderful place.
Finding one such oak in a shallow dell, Demairo collapsed in a panting heap on the tree’s roots and paused to get his breath back. Once he was satisfied he could move without black spots flickering over his eyes, he set a bare foot to the bark, reached up to grab a jutting lump on the trunk and hauled himself up to the lowest branch. Swinging his leg over it, he then proceeded to climb higher, until he found a comfortable spot in a fork between two big branches. There he settled down and listened.
It didn’t take long for the disturbance of a running boy to fade, and slowly, surely, the woods came alive once more. While he rested his head against the knobbly trunk and watched a glistening beetle make slow and steady progress along a twig, a nearby little bird started shouting: chiff chaff, chiff chaff, chiff-chiff-chiff chaff. It made him smile.
As he sat there, sinking into his own silence, a small bird with a bright yellow breast, a black cap on its head, white flashing across its cheeks and beautiful green wings, hopped close to his foot. Stabbing out with its sharp beak, it poked through the nearest leaves, snatched up a fat caterpillar and flapped off again.
So much life, so many stories; everything had its own tale to tell. It made him feel slightly better about his own, or at least, not nearly so saddened by it. The world was a harsh, often cruel place – he’d learned that living on the island – but it could also be wondrous and beautiful. If only he was given time alone to appreciate it.
A flap of heavy wings silenced the little birds, and Demairo looked up. A crow landed on the branch above his head. A second flapped in to settle close to his feet. They tilted their heads and eyed him thoughtfully. Then, with a soft purruck, the lower crow hopped onto Demairo’s lap and sidled in close to his body.
“Hello to you too,” the boy murmured, brushing the backs of his fingers over glossy feathers. Out of all his memories of the island, these two crows were the only ones who brought him no pain. They’d been his friends there, in the cold and the dark, now they were his friends here, in the warm sunshine.
The higher crow dropped onto Demairo’s shoulder, wobbled momentarily as it searched for balance, then began preening his curls.
Smiling, Demairo shifted his head aside to give the crow more room and changed his previous thought. No, he didn’t need to be alone to appreciate the world, but it definitely depended on the company.
He wasn’t sure how long he spent there, listening to the woods creep slowly back to life again while the crows fussed over him. He just let himself drift, thinking of nothing special, worrying about no one in particular. It was quiet and peaceful and perfect.
Until the niggling started. Hardly noticeable at first. Just a slight tickle on the back of his hand. He scratched it idly, thinking nothing of it. Until it returned in the middle of his back. Then on his head. Then back on his hand again. Each time it returned it grew a little stronger, until he was almost wriggling with it.
The crows muttered complaints as he kept shifting and scratching, until eventually they both flapped onto the branch over his head.
“Sorry,” he told them. “Maybe I sat on some ants.”
He wiggled his shoulders, trying to ease the itch that sat directly between them on his upper back, but not even a quick scrub against the tree trunk could ease the tickling sensation. When an attempt to scratch at his ankle, while reaching back over his shoulder at the same time, almost pitched him out of the tree, Demairo growled in frustration.
“This is silly,” he grumbled, and climbed down.
The tickling eased when he moved, settling i
n his hands to become a strange almost-humming that sat beneath his skin. Reaching the ground, Demairo rubbed his tingling fingers against his thumbs and rubbed at an itch on his nose.
A firm weight hit his shoulder and he raised an arm just in time to catch the second crow on his wrist, wincing as sharp claws scrabbled for grip. The birds croaked curiously; he shrugged.
Then the itching started again – much to the crows disgust as they flapped off to find less wriggly perches. Hopping and scratching, Demairo moved away from the tree and found his feet carrying him steadily in one direction without him even thinking about it. The further he walked, the more the itching faded, until it settled in his hands once more.
Looking up, he found his crows following him slowly from tree to tree. “Did you do this?”
They didn’t answer, but Demairo hadn’t really expect them to. It hardly mattered now – he was curious. Time to find out what was causing the itching and the tingling. Curling his humming fingers into his palm, he let his feet do the walking and followed them deep into a part of the wood he’d never explored before.
What he discovered was the last thing he expected. Pausing in the shadow of an ancient yew tree, he stared down at the dark pool and patch of flowers that filled a small clearing. A woman knelt beside the still waters, her bright hair dull in the dim light, but Demairo still recognised her.
Looking up at him, Briallen smiled sadly. “Hello, Bleydhik. Have you come to say goodbye too?”
BRIALLEN FELT NO surprise when Demairo appeared in the shadows above the quiet pool. It was just the sort of place she expected him to visit. He looked startled to see her though, so she had to smile as she greeted him.
Then she held up her hand, which cupped a pale pink dog rose, and beckoned him closer. “Why don’t you help me?”
The boy frowned and took a cautious step out of the shadows, as wary as a young fawn.
Sensing that his silence was filled with thoughts of flight, Briallen began to talk as she returned her attention to the flowers she’d gathered in her basket on her walk through the wood. “I’ve always liked this place. It’s so peaceful. No one else comes here – apart from frogs and dragonflies. I find the quiet helps me think.” She looked up again and found that Demairo had crept nearer, pale eyes fixed on her face.
“And to say goodbye?” the boy asked, his voice as soft as the wind sighing through the branches above their heads.
When he crouched down and reached out to touch her cheek, Briallen blinked, unaware that she’d been crying.
She gave a small sniff and wiped her face. “That too.” Seeing that he’d drawn back, she smiled reassuringly. “Mostly that. At first this was the perfect place to escape the farm – Rosen’s bossiness, Ia’s prying and Dama Wynn’s expectations. But then, after Mewan… Well, I felt as if I could talk to him here.”
Briallen stared down at the flowers in her basket and gave an unhappy laugh. “I couldn’t talk to him when he was alive, so I don’t see why I thought I could talk to him here. Now. After. Perhaps it was just myself I was talking to, or the – my – the babe.” A twinge in her belly tugged on the ache in her heart. It had been a full moon since she’d lost it, but her body still remembered.
A gentle squeeze on her hand reminded her that she was not alone, so she sniffed and wiped her face again. “Now I can talk to them both. Or perhaps myself. Or maybe the sky.”
“Or the frogs and dragonflies,” Demairo offered shyly, making her smile.
“Them especially,” she agreed, laughing a little. “They’re very good listeners.”
“I used to talk to seals,” he confided, sinking to his knees beside her and picking up the dog rose that had fallen from her fingers. He studied the pale petals, the large flower almost filling his hand.
“And now?” Briallen asked.
Demairo flicked his eyes briefly upwards, but when Briallen tilted her own head she couldn’t see what he was looking at. A small smile curled his lips, then he leant forward and placed the rose on the water, sending it floating across the surface with a small puff of breath.
“I talk to myself. Or the sky.” He glanced sideways at her, peeping bashfully between the curls that tumbled across the forehead. “Or you, maybe.”
The ache in Briallen’s chest tightened to a breathless clutch, as if small fingers had grabbed hold of her heart. “I would be honoured if you would talk to me,” she whispered.
He smiled, not shyly, but properly, his solemn, slender face revealing a tiny dimple as his cheeks bunched and his eyes lit up. But he didn’t talk, and neither did Briallen. Instead they both reached for another flower from the basket, then leant forward to add them to the water.
Little white daisies went spinning with strawberry flowers, pink ragged robins drifted like stringy spiders surrounded by bright yellow celandines. White field roses joined the dog roses, and finally, scattered all over the dark pond were beautiful blue forget-me-nots blending with the purple, whites and pinks of heartsease.
When they were finished and Briallen’s basket was empty of flowers, the quiet pool was filled with spinning, rippling colour. It was beautiful enough to bring a tear to her eye.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
A soft brush of warm lips against her cheek, then Demairo was gone, leaving her to cry in private and say a final, heartfelt goodbye not just to the child she had lost, but to the life she had once dreamed of living and the man she had hoped she’d married.
Nothing had turned out in the least like she’d once imagined it would, but that didn’t mean her life was over. Or that she couldn’t try again, aim for something different, something better.
Something beautiful, like bright petals on dark water.
“And this time I’ll get it right,” she promised, not just to herself but to the ghost of her husband and the lost promise of her almost-child. Then she wiped away her tears and returned to the farm, leaving the flowers to sink in silence and peace.