Guard my spirit as I walk alone
And I will watch for thee
Sree felt a sense of peace and purpose settle over her. It will be all right, she thought. In time, all will be well.
Then she heard the scream.
The hut had whitewashed walls, a small garden dormant in preparation for winter, and a sheep paddock in back against the low-rising hills. The smell of damp wool and wood fire smoke filled the air. A dozen sheep clustered together at the back of the paddock, as far away from the screams as they could get.
Sree didn’t stop to knock at the weather-beaten door-she flung it open and pulled Elina inside with her. With a brief glance she took in the hearth fire hung with a kettle of boiling water; the blood-soaked rags hastily discarded in a corner; the offerings to Bhalla and the lake spirits placed on the bedroom threshold. All of this was as it should be for the birthing, but the woman’s screams were screams of panic and terror, not the determined cries of a mother about to meet her children for the first time.
Amid the screams, voices from the bedroom-including the village healer’s-tried to soothe and cajole the young woman to breathe, but Sree heard the carefully concealed desperation in the words.
She found a stool near the fire and sat Elina upon it. No need to tell the child to stay put-Sree knew she would be there waiting when the ordeal was finished. She found soap and clean rags on a table in the corner and dipped one in the boiling water. After she’d washed her hands thoroughly, she went into the bedroom.
Elina sat on the stool and watched the fire. The heat felt good on her cold nose, but the air in the house was too thick, and it smelled rotten. She would rather be back at home in her own bed.
She sat on the stool, not moving, until her legs started to cramp from dangling just above the floor. She slid off and stumbled, scraping her knee against the floor. The scratches were red when she looked at them, and a drop of blood welled up. Elina watched it slide down the back of her leg.
In the bedroom, the woman’s screams got louder. Elina put her hands over her ears to drown them out, but it didn’t help. The smell got worse too-it made her nose itch, and she knew she remembered it from somewhere. She tried to find something in the room to look at, but there was only the pile of red rags and the windows filmed over with dirt.
“Bhalla, aid me!” The scream from the bedroom made Elina cower. She put her arms over her head and ran out of the house. She didn’t even realize what her feet had done until she stood in the dooryard, blinking in the watery sunlight.
There was no relief outside. Sheep ran around their paddock, wailing, crying, and frantically pushing one another to escape the screams from inside the house. Elina felt sorry for them, but she was frightened too. She saw a sheep chewing a fence post where the wood met the ground. It chewed and chewed until blood and spit dripped from its mouth. The animal’s eyes looked strange, as if they were blind.
A ewe slammed its head into the fence post nearest Elina. She screamed, the ewe screamed, and Elina ran. She bolted around the side of the house, but the paddock and the sheep were everywhere. Against the side of the house was a tall woodpile. Elina found a slender gap between the stacked wood and the wall and crawled into it.
The air smelled better here, earthy and moist. Wetness soaked through her wool skirt, but Elina hardly noticed. She lay down on the ground and covered her ears against the sheep cries. She could see through gaps in the woodpile their frantic, scuffling movements. Could they see her back here? What if that was why they were trying to get out of the paddock-to come after her? She wanted to close her eyes, but she was afraid they would get her when she wasn’t looking, so she pressed her face to a gap in the wood and watched.
A single eye gazed back at her from the other side of the gap.
Elina screamed and covered the hole with her hands. She pushed herself back and hit her head against the side of the house. Pain made her vision go dark for a minute. When she came back to herself, she felt gentle hands cradling her head and fingers stroking her hair.
Sree, Elina thought. She came to find me.
When she raised her head, it wasn’t Sree looking back at her, but a small figure with spindly arms and legs.
Elina felt a new surge of fear. She breathed very fast, but the small creature shook its head and laid its hands-so much smaller and thinner compared to her own-on her arm in a soothing gesture. It was then Elina realized the creature was made of wood. The hands that touched her curved and were sharp like twigs snapped off a sapling. The creature’s hair was green and brown, alive with rare white heather blossoms, dirt, and earthworms. As Elina watched, more of the small flowers sprang up at different places on its body. The tiny thing both fascinated and repelled her, for it was unlike any creature she’d ever seen.
“Are you … the tree people?” she whispered. Her mother had often spoken to her of the spirits of the forest, especially those that lived in the pinewoods around Tinnir.
Green eyes sparkled, and the grains of wood in the creature’s face warped in what could have been a smile. The spirit reached up and touched the back of the woodpile. Suddenly, the sheep cries melted away, and the cut wood grew vines and flowers to fill in the gaps in the pile.
Elina watched, speechless. She felt the air grow comfortably warm, and the grass beneath her wet skirt turned soft and thick. Never had she felt so warm and safe out of doors.
Her mother used to warn her about what could happen if she went to the wild places alone, but this wild forest pocket drew protectively close around her, and the spirit sat beside her as if to keep watch.
Suddenly Elina realized how sleepy she was. She covered a yawn with her hand. Seeing this, the spirit beckoned her to the grass, and Elina laid her head down on the soft green pallet. The white blossoms hovering near her nose smelled like honey, and the last thing she thought of before she drifted off to sleep were the thick honey rolls her mother used to bake on the bitterest winter mornings. She’d bring them out steaming on a warm plate, and, the two of them, wrapped in the thickest blankets they owned, would eat them in front of the fire.
“Don’t waste a drop,” her mother would say, and then she would run her tongue in a circle over her lips to catch any forgotten stickiness. Elina imitated her now, her small tongue touching the white blossoms.
She awoke to someone furiously shaking her.
“Get up,” Sree hissed. She was too big to fit behind the woodpile, but Elina could see through bleary eyes the hathran’s masked face staring in at her. Evening had come, and as she sat up, Elina realized the tree spirit had gone. The woodpile was back to being a woodpile, all sticks and wet earth. The rotten smell was back, assailing Elina’s nostrils more strongly than ever, but at least the sheep had stopped crying.
Still reluctant to leave her nest, Elina sat up slowly and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Sree was not so patient. She seized Elina by the arm and all but dragged her out from behind the woodpile.
“Turn toward me,” the hathran commanded, and put her body between Elina and the fence. “You worried me to death, Elina, running off like that. I called and called, but you didn’t answer. You must never hide from me again, do you understand?”
Sree picked her up and forced her face down against her shoulder. Elina’s cheek pressed uncomfortably against Sree’s collarbone. The witch’s skin was sticky and smelled like sweat. Elina didn’t like being carried like this. She couldn’t see anything.
“Stop struggling. What’s come over you?” Sree held her head immobile. Elina caught a glimpse of the open door to the house and heard a baby wailing within.
A single baby’s voice-but Sree said there were going to be two.…
“Thank Bhalla that at least one babe could be saved,” Sree murmured under her breath. Elina felt the vibration of the words in the hathran’s throat, and she heard the grief as well. “Close your eyes now, child. Go back to sleep if you can.”