She had come for two reasons, and for either she would rather die than fail to try. Closing her eyes, she struggled on.
“Let me pass by to my ancestors, first ... first of my ... blood. Give me leave to touch ... the Seed of Sanctuary.”
A horrid, cold breath washed over her face.
Her fingers began to ache in clutching the bottle.
That breath came twice more, stronger each time ... and then stopped on an inhale.
Leanâlhâm’s legs nearly buckled as she waited to be swallowed alive. A soft grating sound in pulses broke over the noise of blood pounding in her ears. She heard the coils grating upon wet mulch.
The sound grew strangely softer, more distant, until it was gone, and still she could not open her eyes.
“Now enter,” Cuirin’nên’a whispered.
Leanâlhâm shuddered, not only at those sudden words but the quaver in Cuirin’nên’a’s voice.
This was the woman who had come out of Leanâlhâm’s home blood-stained from having killed one of her own without hesitation, and later gone after the others all alone. There had been no fear in her hard, beautiful eyes back then.
Leanâlhâm looked up to find Cuirin’nên’a’s features visibly tense.
“Are you not coming?” she whispered, her own fear growing again.
“You must enter alone.”
“But I heard about ... Sgäilsheilleache went with Léshil.”
“Go.”
Leanâlhâm hesitated in looking to the glow beyond the oaks. No matter what waited there, she could not turn back now. Taking her first hesitant steps, she peered about for any sign of the Father of Poison. She never stopped looking as she walked, until the glow ahead grew too much to ignore.
She found herself standing between the surrounding oaks on the edge of the inner clearing. Before her was an enormous glistening tree not quite as large as those that surrounded it. She knew it only by a name, for no one would have dared to describe it.
Roise Chârmune—the Seed of Sanctuary.
All her fear faded as she stepped closer and gazed up into its wild branches filling the night above her. It was not shaped like the tall and straight ash trees she had seen all of her life. From its thick trunk, stout branches curved and wound and divided. A soft glow emanated from all of its fine-grained tawny wood and dimly lit the entire clearing.
Leafless and barkless, yet alive—she could feel that much, and this must be what all those before her had felt upon coming here. From its wide-reaching roots lumping the earth to its thick and naked pale yellow body and limbs, the tree’s softly rippled surface glistened beneath its own glow. Warmth spread from it that she could not describe, as if its light sank through her skin.
Leanâlhâm held up the small bottle.
Before her own need came that of someone she loved. Carefully removing the stopper, she crouched, uncertain whether she did any of this correctly. She slowly tapped the ashes out and spread them at the base of the tree.
“You are home,” she said, closing her eyes and wishing the ancestors would keep Sgäilsheilleache among them forever. It seemed so long before she rose and, with her head still down, tucked the bottle away in her tunic. Then she looked upon Roise Chârmune.
“I am here,” she whispered.
Nothing happened. Had she done something wrong, or was there something she had not done? She hesitantly stepped closer, reached out, and her hand stalled with her fingertips shy of that bare, tawny trunk. Swallowing hard, she touched the glistening wood.
The world darkened and grew cold.
Leanâlhâm’s breath caught as she felt a hand overlie hers against the tree ... and then she saw the hand take form. It was long fingered and glimmered like the tree, and she could see her own hand right through it. Leanâlhâm turned her head to look upon ...
A ghostly golden an’Cróan woman, her slender face lined by age, sternly watched Leanâlhâm. The woman’s robe over her gown might have been blue, but Leanâlhâm could not be certain as she began shivering in the sudden cold. The way the woman’s long hair moved in some unfelt breeze reminded Leanâlhâm of long grass blades caught in a river’s flow.
She could not help but think that ... she looked upon one of the ancestors.
With a sharp flash of pain in her heart, she blurted out, “Is Grandfather with you? Could I see him once more? I never told him good-bye.”
By way of an answer, the elder woman placed her other hand upon Leanâlhâm’s cheek—and pressed, forcing her to look back to the tree.
Roise Chârmune began to swell before Leanâlhâm’s eyes, as if she were falling face-first into its trunk. An instant before impact, she thought she saw translucent leaves sprouting from its limbs. Then she saw something more ... through and beyond it.
She looked out upon a land she did not know, as if she stood upon a high precipice, about to fall. Beyond a broken expanse, where a ragged terrain spread between ranges of woods, was the richness of a deep and dark forest.
Leanâlhâm felt herself teetering on the edge.
She arched back, stumbling in an awkward retreat, and spun about. Everything around her had changed. The burial grounds ... the glowing tree ... were gone.
Across an open grass plain that strangely frightened her was a forest’s edge with trees that dwarfed the dwellings of her homeland. They were so impossibly tall. But that plain between them terrified her for some reason, as if a violent event had happened there that she could not remember.
She backed away, but then the grass clung to and snagged her clothing, as if trying to stop her. With her breath quickening, she thrashed around, ripping her cloak from the grass’s grip.
Leanâlhâm froze in place, for there at the edge of the plain stood the ghostly elder woman.
“Where am I?” she cried out.
The ghost said nothing. Perhaps a brief sorrow passed across her features. If so, it was quickly gone, replaced by stern watchfulness.
Leanâlhâm turned to the right to run. There beyond her stood the ghost, closer now. She retreated and then whirled to run the other way along the plain. Again the woman was there, closer still. Leanâlhâm stumbled in trying to stop and fell face-first into the tall grass.
Rolling, she tried to escape the clinging strands. She fought to get to her feet, and this time ran for the far tree line, but that ghostly woman appeared again ... out on this plain and far from that massive forest that was not her own.
Leanâlhâm pulled up short before stepping over the precipice.
It was suddenly there before her again. Beyond it was now only choppy water as far as she could see, but it was not the rich blue-green of the bays of her people. Crashing waves of dull gray and foam broke upon the rocks far below her. Backing away, she turned more slowly this time and ...
She found herself in a dark forest of vines and enormous trees. The sky was no longer visible above, blocked out by intertwined branches. Spinning around, frantic at being lost, she stopped.
There was a glow far ahead of her, but she could not see from where it came. It could only be Roise Chârmune, and so she ran for it, slapping her way through the brush until her clothes were soaked by droplets on wet leaves. She broke upon a narrow path and could not see the light in the forest anymore.
Turning both ways, she saw it at last.
There stood the woman, pointing the other way along the path, away from herself. Or was she pointing at ...
Leanâlhâm backed away. All that she knew was gone and lost. She recognized nothing here.
“Where am I?” she cried again.
Down the path by which I came ... to a lost way.
Leanâlhâm shuddered so hard that it nearly pushed her to convulsions. She had heard those words, mournful in the woman’s voice, though the spirit’s lips had not moved. Cowering, as the woman pointed beyond her and back toward the precipice, Leanâlhâm raised her hands to cover her eyes but never touched her face.