Solace (A Short Story)

Solace

  By Meredith Anne DeVoe

  Copyright © 2015 Meredith Anne DeVoe

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781370680368

  Solace is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any events or characters, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Solace

  It was solace and a clear head I sought as I climbed the ridge, toward midnight; the wind growing blustery as I reached the top. Still, the sentinel pine there had withstood much greater troubles, so I climbed the spoke-like branches and sat near the top, watching the stars and idly trying to wipe the sap off of my fingers onto the bark of the trunk.

  So it was complete chance that a dark shape interrupted the stars long enough to catch my attention, and I saw within it a pair of eyes. In surprise, I reached my sticky hand up and it was grabbed by a grey-wrapped claw of a hand, while grey eyes clawed for a hold in my own.

  A face formed around the desperate eyes while we stared. My arm had snaked around the trunk while the wind buffeted the rest of the body of the figure about, but there was no weight or pull beyond the pressure of the hand that warmed in my own.

  “That harshbag, Eradis!! He turned me around so I’ve been anchorless and lost to the world for, how long? Seven winters or seventy. Please, your other hand. Please,” she begged as I hesitated, then released my arm and held it up. Another arm formed from the shadows and a cold, grey hand took it.

  Then she was swinging down to sit on a nearby branch, gasping. Further shadows formed in the night but I couldn’t tell where she ended and the tossing pine boughs began.

  I could sense she was very, very tired and the fever-bright eyes closed slowly. She leaned slowly toward the trunk and rested her head. “How is it you saw me?”

  “I was a follower of Eradis. I am a follower of Eradis,” I corrected myself, but the eyes had opened and fixed on mine again, wild.

  “Was, you said. Was? What happened? You said ‘was’. I think you meant it.” She looked me up and down, and then sat up. There was curiosity in her eyes, which I realized were blue, not grey. Color was returning to her lips, as well. “You no longer trust him, do you.”

  I hoped my voice was indifferent as I said, “What’s between me and Eradis is none of yours. What about you, why did he send you spinning?”

  I realized, though, that she was no wraith, but a girl; not much younger than myself. And she was shivering. If she didn’t get out of the tree soon, she would fall out. Eradis might not like me pulling her out of the sky like that, but it was already done and I may as well find out what I could from her before sending her back. If that’s what I was going to do.

  By the time we reached the bottom branches I had to carry her pig-a-back, but she was thin as a twig on a dead sapling. I kept her aback as we descended the ridge as it was easier than trying to climb down holding her up. The fire was embers in my hut and getting out of the wind, it seemed almost cloying. But the grey girl huddled up to the hearthstone and shivered there a long time. I lit a lamp and put one of my two stoneware cups, full of lukewarm tea, beside her. I drank cold water because the trip down had warmed me. Also, I didn’t trust her and I was on high alert. I had no idea what she would do, but if Eradis had warranted her offenses great enough to toss her over the side of the world, I had best be on the watch.

  I went to the rill and filled the small, black cookpot with sweet water. Inside, I added knots of wood to the embers and placed the pot on the three stones. I had washed barley and set it to soak earlier, so I added this to the pot with a knuckle of a wild boar and a good pinch of salt. It was simmering before the girl decided to speak. Now that she was almost warm, she smelled of icicles and smoke and summer storms and lilac and falling leaves and cold death, all at once. Her skin and hair remained grey, and I noticed that her lips had faded again to the color of old bone. I was surprised to see them color as she spoke in cold anger.

  “It was in the year that the old king died, that Eradis discarded me. Of course, kings had little to do with us. But that was the news, and the people in town were celebrating the new king’s reign. Or that was the excuse to have a party, anyway. I was surprised when Eradis insisted we go down and enjoy the music and the cider, maybe dance or play a game. He warned us to take care, but it seemed like he himself didn’t have a care in the world.” Her voice rasped and she picked up the cup and drank deeply.

  “Oh, but that’s good to feel going down.” She eyed the cup gratefully, then glanced at me. Her eyes again fixed on mine, and tears formed in the lower rims. “So cold, so lonely…” I squeezed her shoulder. The skin was cold in the rent at the shoulder of her ragged garment, but warmed under my touch immediately. When I pulled my hand away, the creamy color remained for a few minutes. I could even see freckles.

  She relaxed visibly and returned her gaze to the fire, her hands idly playing with the cup. “You went to the fête,” I prompted. The bitter aspect returned.

  “We danced, we drank, we ate roasted meat and pears and fried bread, and we laughed and danced some more. Then we started disappearing, one by one. I asked Eradis, ‘Where’s Paloma?’ He would,” the girl shrugged in illustration, “’Oh, she went back tired.’ From the six of us, only myself and Tury remained and it was getting dark and then he was gone and I saw him, trudging back up the path, like a ghost of himself. I started after him to ask what happened and Eradis was there, holding my arm in a grip like a bear’s jaw.”

  My mind was turning over. I had never heard of Paloma or Tury. And what old king was she referring to?

  I thought of the last harvest festival I had snuck off to. I knew Eradis looked the other way sometimes so I wasn’t worried about missing a few evening chores. The big house itself had plenty of places to hide, and he could assume I was playing in the hay with one of the girls.

  I had my fun and came back after dark, full of cider and music and the smiles of one particularly sweet and pretty girl. Suddenly, Eradis had been on the path in front of me. He grinned broadly at me and drew me to himself as I passed out… I awoke in the dawn, clothed on my bed, shivering and down in spirit as I could ever be. The cider had been sour, the music harsh, and the girl unkind in my memory, although none of that had seemed right.

  I dragged myself about my day, but Eradis was full and strong and seemed younger and more kind and happy than ever. I was grateful for his patience with me as I fumbled about my lessons and went back to my bed to sleep rather than practice.

  The girl continued her story. “I asked Eradis if Tury was all right and he started laughing. It was like he couldn’t help himself. He let go my arm as he doubled over. I ran to Tury to walk home with him, but it was like Tury couldn’t hear me or understand anything I was saying to him. He told me he felt so empty and cold. But I had seen him not a half-hour before, smiling as he taught a little girl the steps of the summer reel. I had eaten roast meat and plums with him.

  “Eradis was there again, and the same smile I had seen on Tury’s face as he encouraged the little girl was in his eyes. A lot made sense all at once. The others. The waking up cold and hungry of a summer’s morn after feasting. But his grip was on me, and this time after draining me of light and joy, he simply said, ‘Too bad. Now you know,’ and flung me into the summer wind, spinning and turning.”

  She looked down at her arms, and slid her hands up and down the thin biceps as if to warm them.

  “Summer wind doesn’t stay summer, does it?” I murmured. While she had been speaking, I had added wild leeks and thyme to the pot, and now I filled two gourd bowls with the steaming soup and set it on the hearth to cool. I added the pig’s knuckle to her bowl.

  She could barely wait and in a few moments had picked up her bowl and was blow
ing on it to cool, slurping tiny mouthfuls. My mind was a-roil and I couldn’t eat just yet.