Page 61 of The Changeling

So my secret name was Ruis, the rune for the elder tree, and my brother’s secret name was Fearn, the rune for the alder. It was not such a leap of logic to assume that my mother’s secret name might be one of the sacred tree runes too. But which one? And how was I to guess it?

It had been a long time since Nan had let me play with her omen staves, while she told me what the deep lines grooved into the twigs all meant. She had twenty omen staves; that I knew, but I could not remember all the trees. Birch, rowan, alder, willow, ash were the first set. Their runes were all one straight slash down, then one to five slashes to the right. After that came hawthorn, oak, holly, hazel and apple. Their runes had slashes to the left.

But after that, I was not sure. Dimly I thought blackthorn was one, and yew, and heather. I only remembered elder because every part of the tree had a healing or magical purpose, from its starry white flowers to its furrowed grey bark and clusters of sweet shiny berries. That meant many a jar on Nan’s shelves had been marked with the elder rune, and I was always being sent to find one and bring it to her as she worked.

It was also one of my own favourite trees, both because I loved the sweet-scented blossoms and because you could easily make a flute by pushing out the soft pith at the core of a stem, and then drilling in a few holes with the point of a knife. I had made many an elder flute as a child.

My mother could shapeshift into a hare, she could speak to me through my own reflection in glass, she could make a whole castle sleep. How? How did she work such powerful magic? How did she force her will upon the world?

I was her daughter. Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. Heir to her magic.

I had to learn to bend the world to my will.

Jars full of twigs and feathers stood on my shelf. I drew them out and laid them in rows on my bed, like I used to do when I was a child. I passed my hand over them, waiting for inspiration to come. In the end, I chose a tawny owl feather, striped in brown and cream, and an alder twig with a few dark cones and dried leaves still hanging from its tip. Nan’s cunning book called the alder the tree of secrecy. It seemed the best one to help me now. I carved four swift lines onto the twig, one down, three to the right, then tied a red thread about my left wrist, with a hagstone hanging from it.

Holding the twig and the feather, I sat at the window, looking down at the immense fall below me. My breath came jerkily. Was I mad? What if I fell? What if I forgot who I was and stayed in the shape of an owl forever? I touched the red thread at my wrist, breathed deeply, and tried to remember the rhyme Nan had once told me, so long ago, when I was just a child. It made me feel strange, thinking so far back into my past. So much had happened, so much had changed. I did not think I was the same girl I had been then.

I rehearsed the incantation in my mind, changing it to suit my needs. Then I thought about the faery queen, and where she might be. She had stood at the foot of Castle Rock and tied her baby’s crib to a fragile thread made of nettle. She would have watched it being drawn up that great height, swaying back and forth, back and forth; she would have seen me bring it through the window. She would have seen the sudden flare of brightness as I burned the wicker crib, she would surely have known I had done her will and her son now slept in the cradle of the prince.

What would she do then?

I imagined her transforming once more into a hare, hopping through the sleeping city, loping across dark fields. She had given birth that night; she must be tired. If I followed her, I could spy on her, I could discover her name.

I chanted out loud, ‘I shall fly with the queen of night, I shall see with the owl’s keen sight, I shall go in the Lady’s name, till I come home once again.’

I imagined the exhilarating rush of wind in my feathers, the sudden shocking clarity of owl-sight. I felt light, untethered. The room seemed to sink away below me. I lifted into the air, my wings beating. Carlin sat up, and began to bark.

Hush-hooh, I hooted and circled above her head.

She did not obey me. If I was not careful, she would wake someone and they would come and find me gone and an owl flapping about the room in my stead. I tilted my wings and soared out the open window and over the sleeping city, the Firth of Forth glimmering in the moonlight. Exultation leapt within me.

Tonight I hunt …

I flew north, seeking the running hare.

Wheeling infinities of stars above, dark forests and fields below. I was the queen of the night. I tested my wings, soaring high, swooping low, raking the ground with my huge dark eyes. At last, far below, a thin exhausted hare, limping along. I floated above her, wanting to be sure it was my mother. The hare did not stop to forage or rest. Mile after mile she ran, heading north-west, straight towards the Knock. Even in winter, in times of hardship, no hare ran so far and so unflagging. This was no ordinary hare.

I wanted to swoop down, snatch her up in my claws, drive my hooked beak into her breast and tear the meat from her bones, so she would know what it was to be prey.

But if I killed her, I would not learn her secret. I swallowed down my hunger and my rage, clenched my claw on the twig I carried, and said, silently, Alder, tree of secrecy, reveal to me her hidden name, so I can beat her at her game, let the truth be shown to me.

A cold tailspin of wind caught me, and I whirled about, unable to ride the tempest. Stars spun around me. I fell, feathers in a flurry, till at last I managed to wrest control over the wind. I steadied my wings and flew down, searching the ground below for any sight of a running hare. Far below, a door opened, flinging an apron of light into the night. The hare leapt out of the dangerous brightness. I floated down, light as a flake of ash, to perch in the branches of a hawthorn tree hung with hundreds of fluttering ribbons.

A small house, thatched with heather, a chimney at either end. Mam stood on the doorstep, a lantern in her hand. Dressed in a woollen gown, a plaid wrapped about her head and shoulders, she hurried across the frosty grass.

Somehow it was no longer midsummer. My owl’s feathers were ruffled up against the cold, and the fields were bare and brown. A little girl peeped around the open door of the cottage, dressed only in a chemise. She had a small pointed face, a great mass of dark curls and big black eyes. Suddenly I knew where I was. Or rather, when. I had flown back in time to the night I had first met the faery queen, when I was but seven years old.

Mam carried two locks of hair, wound together and tied with red thread. One black as night, the other golden as day. She dug a hole in the frost-hardened ground, grunting with the effort, and buried the braid under the hawthorn’s roots. Then she danced around the tree, chanting a spell seven times. This time I could hear the words.

Queen Quickthorn, wild faery tree

Send your roots down deep and strong,

Guard my bairns, shield them from wrong,

Guard my home and family.

The hare watched from the shadows. Its long ears moved back and forth, troubled and uneasy. Mam finished her chant, bent her head and said a silent prayer, then went inside, her arms wrapped tightly about her shivering body.