Page 53 of Shaw

Julianne’s stomach did a few flip-flops as she tucked her arm through her aunt’s, and accompanied her out of the garden and into the orchard where her father grew a small variety of heirloom apples. The ground, spangled with the fallen blossoms, glittered with the same amber and bronze lights that had transformed Klee. Even the air seemed to change now, growing warmer and richer, fragrant with a thousand delicious scents of flowers and fruits and endless greenery. Yet the fire that had killed her parents had burned all this to charcoal, so it had to be a hallucination—or maybe Klee had done something to her.

I don’t want it to stop. I miss the farm.

“I know you’re not human,” she said to her aunt as they came to a stop on the edge of the kitchen garden. “So what are you?”

“I am too old for such definitions, child, but my true name is Chlíodhna. As a little one you could not say that, so I became Klee for you.” She extended her arm and smiled as three brightly-colored birds landed on it. “I’m not your aunt, of course, but I regarded your adopted parents with great fondness.”

Now Julianne’s blood turned to ice. “Are you, like, my biological mother?”

“No, dear girl. I cannot do such a thing. Your birthing mother sought sanctuary in my forest as she tried to escape some very unpleasant raiders. I’m afraid she lured them away to keep them from killing you both. Her noble sacrifice prompted me to bring you to live with me for a time.” The older woman sighed. “I knew my kind did not foster yours, but I did not understand why until after I kept you for some time. Centuries pass without meaning in the world inside my forest, you see. It affected you as well.”

Julianne remembered Shaw’s story about the melia trapping a fisherman inside the Stone Forest. “What time am I from?”

“This time, of course, my sweet girl. Your birthing mother came from a place called Nóregr. The raiders who enslaved her killed her husband and took you and her on their final raid on Scotland.” Klee swiped her hand across the air, and an image of an older Julianne dressed in furs and with hundreds of braids in her hair appeared. “Her name was Maja, and yours was Jorunn.”

Maja held a squirming bundle against her chest, Julianne saw, and kept glancing over her shoulder as she hurried through a dense forest. “What happened to her?”

“She freed all the other slaves on the boat while the raiders attacked another village.” Her aunt sighed. “She tried to run away with you as well, but she was weak from her injuries. When the raiders caught up with her in my forest, she left you with me and ran away.”

Julianne pressed her fingers to her temples as a rush of memories came through her head. The ash tree opening, and two long-fingered hands reaching out to take her from Maja’s arms. “She gave me to you.”

“Yes. That is why I brought you inside my forest world, and there nurtured you. I taught you the ways of my kind, and how you should protect the helpless, as we do.” Klee smiled sadly. “I even shielded you with my magic so you would not be harmed by anything. Yet mortals were never meant to live in the forest world, so it changed you.”

She gaped at her. “You mean, living there made me stupid?”

“Your mortal body grew very tall, but your mind never developed as it should. Perhaps it was because time has no meaning in my world. You always remained sweet and trusting.” She made a sweeping gesture. “Once I saw how the magic of my world changed you I consulted the oracle of my kind. I learned you were meant to come to Caladh as a castaway slave, and there you would be, ready to help the chieftain when his clan freed him from slavery. By accepting you and protecting you, I not only damaged you, I kept you from your destiny.”

“But not on purpose, right?” When Klee nodded she sighed. “So, okay, what happened next?”

“Once I understood the mistakes I had made, nine centuries had already passed,” her aunt admitted. “That was when I brought you back to the mortal realm and gave you to Jack and Sarah Scott. I’d hoped among your own kind that the effects of living in the forest world would fade, but that never happened.”

“So you took away my memories of my life with you.” When Klee nodded she almost shrieked with frustration. “Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this, Auntie?”

“Your parents wished you to have an ordinary life after I brought you to them. I but respected their wishes. I also thought you were happy with them.” The older woman reached out to rest a hand against her cheek. “Your druid blood meant you were an old soul. I simply did not understand how old you are. As it happens, you and my kind have met many, many times before this latest incarnation of yours. I believe some part of me recognized that when your mother gave you to me.”

Now the conversation was just becoming bizarre. “Please don’t tell me that you and me and Shaw all reincarnate together. I don’t want to have a breakdown.”

“Be at ease, my sweet girl. Our kind have long been allies. That’s why my instinct to protect you was so strong.” The older woman sighed. “I enchanted you with a shield to keep any other Fae from harming you, which is why it pains these halfling folk to touch you. I gave you the gift of languages, and I also put on a compulsion to keep possession of your parents’ farm in the spell, as that is my land, and forever your safe haven.”

“The orchard, that’s your forest.” Suddenly she understood. “You never went anywhere on those trips. You went inside your trees.”

“I do not exactly exist in the mortal realm, and I cannot long abide with your kind.” Her expression darkened. “I should have guessed what Mitchell wanted the first time he came to the farm, but he deceived me as well.”

She went still. “He’s never been to the farm.”

“Your former husband went there three times while you were away training, and offered Jack and Sarah any price they wanted for their land. When they refused to sell, he set fire to the farm, hoping to ruin them. He did not set out to kill them, but he showed no remorse when he learned they had died in the fire.” Klee’s expression darkened. “I could not leave the world of the forest and cross into the mortal realm until my tree healed. By the time it did, he had married you.”

Julianne swallowed hard. “You still could have told me.”

“At the time you were so much in love with Mitchell, I knew you would not believe me. He knew how to control a woman’s heart.” The older woman rubbed her hand over her back. “Nor can we ever see our own fates, or our roles in that final outcome, or I’d have shown you. I also knew you had entered the final turn of your fate, and were destined to soon find Shaw. If I had interfered, you might never have come together with your chieftain, or gone with him to the island. Now you must return, for the time has arrived for you to act.”

A new stream of memories roared through Julianne, and she watched events unfold near Caladh for the second time. When she blinked she was back in the great hall at Dun Ard, with everyone around her acting as if she’d never left. Although she thought she had spent close to an hour with Klee, only a few moments had passed here.

…time has no meaning in my world.

She jumped to her feet. “I need to see Shaw, right now.”

Sailing from Insii Orc to pursue the escaped Norsemen kept Speal standing at the bow of the merchant trader. Scanning the endless dark blue of the sea for any sign of the longboat occupied her mind, and prevented her from dwelling on any undesirable thoughts. Although their sovereign had retreated into the captain’s cabin, the euphoria created by her over-indulgences back on the island would eventually dwindle. Once she emerged from the stupor created by hunting, tormenting and slaying the mortal raiders, Derdrui would again become aware of all they thought; even now she could be delving into their minds.