“I’ll use my balm one more time and then you should be healed.” I frowned at his scalp. Now who was lying?
Reaching into the wooden bowl of water next to me on the stool I swirled the seeping herbs, releasing the pungent scent of spruce and nettle. The sores needed a deep clean before I anointed them with a cream I’d churned from animal fat and herbs. The water ran around my fingers. Since my time at the river with Heather the day of the burial, my experience of water was greatly changed. Before, as I felt was the norm, water was a substance you could easily pull one’s hand through. It moved for you. Now, the water fought against me. Even in a still bowl carved from simple wood I could sense the strength of the converged droplets beneath my touch.
Scooping a palmful of the glistening liquid, I smoothed it over Aeneid’s matted, scab filled, hair.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the water could heal him?
I blinked at the ridiculous thought. Water didn’t heal. Not directly. It cleansed, purified, created a space in which healing could take place.
“Eran following.” I frowned at the unwarranted words which tumbled out of my mouth.
“What did you say, Prie—Mae?”
I coughed. “Nothing.” I shook my head and forced a smile, dipping my head as my cheeks blushed.
“Eran following.” This time I gasped as the strange words bubbled to my lips. My hand held Aeneid’s head, my thumb soothing the strands of hair. My palm tingled with a sharp itch.
“Oh,” I exclaimed, turning my hand over to inspect for a bite. He must have bugs in his hair for me to get bitten like that. In alarm, I looked at my palm, finding it covered in dried scabs. I rubbed at them, sweat beading along the back of my neck as a steady panic elevated my heartbeat to that of an escaping deer mid-hunt.
Clutching his head closer, with my breath coming in shallow gasps I inspected his scalp for the condition plaguing him. There was nothing. No scab, no blood, no puss. Nothing.
In alarm, I glanced around only to find Father’s eyes settled on me, his eyebrows so high they were in the edge of his hairline. “Mae, go home at once,” he snapped.
I turned around and begun to clear my mess with shaking hands, but his bellow made me jump. “Now!” he boomed.
Without a backward glance at the now healed Aeneid, I scurried for our round house on the edge of the settlement. Bigger than most, it had a flock of trainee priests in the garden tending my herbs. I ran past them, my robe streaming behind. In the house, I slammed the uneven door and stood panting, my back pressed against the wood. What had happened out there? A wild glance at my hand revealed my scabby palm. Some of the crusty welts were already becoming smaller and disappearing but others were still clear to see.
I’d transferred Aeneid’s festering infection from his head to my hands, all with the utterance of two words I didn’t know. I couldn’t even remember them if I tried.
Magic.
Heather’s words by the river came back to me—not that they’d ever been far away—and I stared in wonder at my hands.
Could the old magic run in me? Why?
The door pushed from behind and I jumped out of the way as Father strode in. Pushing back the hood on his cloak he frowned at me. “Mae? What was that I saw?”
I expected him to be cross, but he seemed oddly delighted. A spark flickered to life in the depths of his gaze.
“I don’t know, Father, I promise I didn’t do anything intentionally.” I kept my hands behind my back, but I knew it was futile. Silently he nodded for me to show them and reluctantly I lifted them forward. The scabs were smaller yet again, but they were still there. I breathed through my mouth. I couldn’t believe I’d done it. It was impossible.
“It is as I hoped, our answer from the gods is coming.” Father clutched my hands, turning them in the dim light to see the yellow crusts of skin better.
“What have you been asking of the gods?”
His eyes flashed. “Come with me.” Gesturing for me to follow, he stole out of the door and I ran to keep up with his determined steps. I wrapped my hands in the folds of my dress, hiding the remaining disfiguring sores and followed his trail into the forest.
When we neared the stones, I sighed in dismay. “Not these again, Father. I’ve told you I don’t agree.”
His hands swept towards the sky. Stood amongst his circular monument, he fulfilled the true imagery of our priests of old. A crackle of thunder boomed above our heads. My eyes skittered to the stones, taking in my view as I stared at scattered bones, some still meshed with decaying flesh. “What have you done?” I asked him.
He followed my fixed look to the bones. “A few sacrifices to appease the gods.”
My legs wobbled, my palms slicking with moisture. I rubbed them on my dress, forgetting the disgusting scabs. “Appease them for what?”
He laughed, “Can’t you see, Mae? We are starving down to the last child. Our settlement grows with newcomers, those lost or displaced by the invaders, yet we can’t feed them. It’s got to end.”
“And sacrificing the few animals we have, helps how?”
His mouth crimped into a furious line, brows knotting together, and he stepped toward me. “Tell me what you know.”
I backed away a step. “I don’t know anything, you know that. I’m the worst student in history.”
“You lie.”
“Excuse me.” I straightened myself to my full height. When I made the effort, I was nearly as tall as him, my willowy frame giving me an unusual height for
