Page 62 of The Changeling

How does the mortal woman know my secret name? the hare whispered without words. How does she know to do such a spell? She has bound me now. I must guard her family and keep them from harm till this tree falls or is felled. How am I to make the prophecy come true, if I cannot move against them? How am I to orchestrate three willing sacrifices?

You will find a way, my queen. A raven fluttered down to where the hare crouched, and bowed his head to her. One of its feet was crippled. We have come too far to let the petty magic of a mortal woman hold us back.

My heart misgives me, the hare said. The cost is too high.

What of the cost we have already paid, my queen? the raven said harshly. Is all the blood we have spilt been in vain?

You are right, my love, the hare answered. I am just weary. Our daughter is strong in magic. She will be the one to break the curse and free our people from tyranny.

I listened intently. Queen Quickthorn, my mother had chanted in her spell. Another name for the tree in which I crouched, its many rags and ribbons fluttering in the icy wind. Hawthorn, one of the most magical of woods, often called the faery tree. I had tied a length of nettle string to the hawthorn tree by the sacred spring at Holyrood, and – strangely, impossibly – called my true love to me. I had made little cakes from its blossoms and so bewitched the queen, and I had carved the rune on a twig to warn Nan of the Witchcraft Act.

And the crown the faery queen wore was woven from hawthorn twigs.

Could its rune be my mother’s true name?

Úath.

I breathed the word in a tiny swirl of frosty air from my beak.

Below me, the hare shuddered.

Danger is near. We must flee. Someone watches, someone speaks my name! Come, my love. I am afraid …

The hare began to run towards the Knock, and the raven soared above her, wings like holes torn in the starry sky. The light in the heather-thatched cottage winked out. All was dark and still.

How had Mam known the faery queen’s secret name? Had she simply been honouring the hawthorn tree? Had she somehow grasped it, with that strange deep intuition of the cunning woman, born from many hours working with the mysteries? Had it been a lucky accident, or a conjunction of fate?

I did not know. I was certain, though, that I had learned my mother’s secret name. I spread my wings and flew, invisible and silent, back to my room in Edinburgh, the bells still jangling to rejoice the birth of a dead prince. I alighted on the windowsill, and said quietly to myself, ‘Owl, owl, God send thee such care, now I be in an owl’s likeness, soon I be in a woman’s likeness.’

I stepped down into my room, knowing at last that I had magic as strange and unfathomable as my mother’s. I was unutterably weary, my arms aching from the long flight, but I faced the rising dawn, poured a circle of salt around me and chanted:

I raise a wall about me, no-one can command me,

not even Úath, dark hawthorn tree,

not even Úath, my mother who bore me,

not even Úath, queen of the Shee,

no-one can force me, by my decree.

Úath, rune for the mayblossom of desire, the hagthorn that pinned the shroud of the dead. As I spoke the last word, my heart jerked sharply and then I felt a new ease and lightness, as if I could breathe deeply for the first time in my life. The nettle thread, which still lay on the floor where I had dropped it, dissolved into dust and blew away in the wind.

I had learned my mother’s secret name, and I’d used it to build a wall of protection about me.

III

Red as Blood

‘What is that smell?’ the queen asked a few days later, her nostrils flaring in distaste.

‘A dead mouse?’ Mistress Gowland responded, sniffing the air. ‘I am so sorry, your Grace. I will have the maids find it and dispose of it, and give the room a good airing.’

‘It makes me feel nauseous.’ Mary pressed her hand over her mouth.

I knew it was not a dead mouse.

I reassured myself that no-one could possibly guess. Both the queen’s son and my brother were tiny and frail, with wisps of dark hair. And babies change so much in the first days of their life. No-one could ever imagine that the baby being rocked in the royal cradle was a faery changeling.