AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m hoping you can tell me how to find Dorcas’s cottage. The Old Mother?”
“I can, but gods, Breen, she’ll talk till you fall unconscious, or wish for it. And she’s so many cats you’ll wade through them like a furry river.”
“That’s why I’d like you to take Bollocks. There’s something I want to ask her.”
“If she doesn’t know, no one does. I’ll send my pity with you. Well, there, see the road running past those stalls and bending left? You take that, then the first path you see on the right behind the yellow cottage. You take that straight into the woods and stick right to it. When it forks, take the left, and you’ll see Dorcas’s cottage. Cozy-looking in the trees, it is, and likely half a dozen cats slinking about. A pretty garden despite them, and a bright red door.”
“Thanks. You go with Kiara now, Bollocks, and play. I won’t be too long.”
“She’ll keep you until next year if she can manage it. She’ll give you tea and biscuits,” Kiara called out as Breen started on the road. “And both a horrible thing indeed.”
It couldn’t be that bad, Breen thought. Besides, it was a lovely walk. All she knew from Keegan was he’d talked to Dorcas—and suffered through it. She hadn’t known for certain about the demon in Odran but had promised to pore through her books and look for answers.
Maybe she’d found some. Maybe they’d offer some new way to fight Odran.
At worst, she’d spend an hour listening to the rambles of a very old woman and dealing with a houseful of cats.
She liked cats.
She liked the pretty yellow cottage with the young woman in a blue dress and many-colored shawls hanging out wash. She liked the bumpy green field where a stubby gray donkey stood guard with sheep forming a single wooly cloud behind him.
She followed Kiara’s directions and took the path into the woods. The light streamed stronger now that the morning moved on.
She felt life in the woods as Keegan had pointed out life in the village. A sleeping fox, a brown rabbit scratching its ear with a busy hind foot, a scurrying mouse, two deer grazing, a horned owl dozing in his tree burrow.
Enjoying the beats and rustles, she took the fork. A narrow stream ribboned along, tinkling out music as it tumbled over rocks worn smooth by its constant passage.
A dragon soared overhead, great wings spread, scales like polishedamethyst. Beneath the wings a young dragon flew. Barely fledged, Breen realized, and testing his own wings.
She didn’t hear birds calling, but felt them, in the trees, on the wing. A chipmunk scurrying with an acorn tight in its cheek. Away from a cat, she thought. No, two cats.
Four. Four cats, she realized, as she came through the trees and saw the cottage with its bright red door.
And three more cats curled up on the tiny porch. Another perched on the edge of the thatched roof like a gargoyle.
Then the woman in the long gray dress, white apron, and faded blue shawl lifting a bucket of water from a well.
Her hair, as gray as her dress, spilled down her back past her waist in a tangle. Her arms, thin as straw but roped with muscle, hauled up the bucket while more cats swarmed around her.
Her black boots had pointed toes and heels stubby like the donkey guarding the field. Her chin, just as pointed, lifted when she caught sight of Breen. Blue eyes blazed out of a face as wrinkled as old paper and as brown as an acorn.
Breen’s first thought was she had a story here for sometime in the future. Some twist on a classic fairy tale. The witch with her many familiars in her woodland cottage.
Bespelled or bespelling?
Something to think about later.
When Dorcas spoke, her voice rasped on the cool air.
“Well now, it’s the Daughter of the O’Ceallaigh, and a fine and good one he was indeed. Gods rest him through all his journeys.”
Though husky with age, her voice carried strength, like her eyes.
“Sure ye’ve the look of him and of Mairghread, that’s for certain. It’s been too long since I’ve seen Marg. She’s well, I hope, and Sedric, that fine cat, with her?”
“She is, and they are, thank you, Old Mother. Let me help you with the pail.”
“Aye, ye’ve younger arms than I, so welcome to it. I’ve a kettle on the hob. I had a pricking in my fingers this morning. Then didn’t the broom fall? A visitor coming, I told my friends here. So we’ve biscuits fresh and tea to go with them.”
