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"Stop! You'll not change my son with the Fay-erie. By the gods of the forest
realm, I name this child Cedrus, Son of Myrica and Tallowman."
"Myrica, don't do this," Rubra pleaded. "Let him go."
"In the name of Ostrya, I bring him in as a forest brother."
The Eider turned and lifted her wooden staff as if to strike. Anger flashed
in her amber eyes. "Do you curse our race?"
"In the name of Tamarack, I protect Cedrus within the Seeiie Court,"
Myrica shouted her petition desperately. By naming the child, she proclaimed
him to be a fairy and under the gods' protection. The Fay-erie would not work
on him now.
"You are a fool." The Elder hissed like a snake. "A fool who thinks nothing
of her child and the Fay. We must still take him in accordance with the law."
"What?"
"You have doomed your child. He must be given to the humans without
benefit of the Fay-erie. He will surely be left to die by them."
The Elder spat on the herb-covered floor. "May the curse of bones be upon
you for challenging Fay law. No more children are to be born to you."
"No!" Myrica pleaded.
The Elder pointed the bottom of her wooden staff toward Myrica, then
pounded it on the floor three times. She broke the staff across her knee and
threw it into the north corner of the room. "The seed of the Earth Mother
shall shrivel and die within you."
Myrica silently watched the Wikkens take her son from the hut. Squirrel
bones rattled in the darkness and the smell of hemlock burned her nose.
Myrica wrapped the sleeping changeling in a clean linen cloth and laid him
in a moss-lined basket. He sucked on his chubby fist.
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"He's a perfect baby." Rubra looked up from her needlework. "He's fat and
healthy. He has the long fingers of a smith. He'll make a fine craftsman, even
if he is human."
Myrica ignored the remarks. At the hearth, she bundled a stack of oatmeal
cakes and packed them into a woven sack with dried mushrooms and deer-
milk cheese.
"He will be a welcomed member of the clan," Rubra continued.
"Tallowman will be glad to have a healthy child he can apprentice as a
goldsmith."
"Tallowman will never see this child." Myrica pulled on her worn suede
boots and tied them at the ankle. "I presented empty baskets to your clan
broch when my first two children died. I'm not presenting a human this
time." Myrica tied her traveling sack about her waist, along with a water
gourd and extra linen for the baby. Around her neck she wore a gold chain of
fairy bells and god fingers that had been passed to her from her mother. She
made a sling for the infant and tied him next to her breast. "The broch will
gladly accept a human. They understand the reason for the laws and the
consequences of not following them," Rubra pleaded. "Laws. Is that all that
concerns you? The Wikkens steal my son, and all you talk about are laws. You
don't understand the love of a mother."
"Foolish child! You talk about understanding, but what do you know?"
Rubra dropped her sewing. "I lost my only child in a pool of blood in the
winter snow. A small faceless beast, with crippled arms and a hollow heart. I
cried for days. I cried for my baby, and I cried for myself. And I accepted my
loss. I never tried to have another child, for I knew what could come of bad
blood." Myrica was silent for a moment. Then she threw on her cloak and
fastened it. "I'm sorry your child died, Rubra," she said finally. "But not all
children born the Seventh Year are born with bad blood. My son was not
deformed. I want him back."
"Your son was taken for a reason. Please, Myrica, think about the Fay
children of the future." Myrica opened the door. The sun was just starting to
lighten the eastern sky beyond the dark umbrella of the forest. "I'm going."
"Stop thinking only of yourself!" Myrica walked out into the crisp morning.
Myrica knelt amid the tall lilies and pressed the dry leaves against her pointed
ear. "From the darkness give me sound, of voices past on this trodden
ground," she chanted in the ancient fairy tongue. She heard the faint
whispering of a pixie song from a previous night. She heard the obnoxious
snorts of a forest troll. The haunting howl of the black dog echoed in the dark.
There were sounds of cool nights and windy days, but no fairies had passed
this way.
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Myrica shivered and pulled at her cloak. She studied the ground and
sniffed. "The trail must be here!" Myrica rubbed her tired eyes. "This is the
quickest way to the openlands. What magic did the Wikkens use? There's no
sound, no track, no scent."
An ashen moon rose in the eastern sky. Myrica looked in the direction the
new elm saplings grew; she chewed a sassafras twig and combed hemlock
needles through her hair. There was still no signs of the Wikkens' passing.
The human child cried, as he had done every hour. Myrica slumped on a
mossy patch near a rotting oak and pulled the wet baby from the sling. The
bells of protection around his neck jingled.
"Shut up, you pig beast." She changed the baby and offered him her aching
breast. "I should leave you here for the dogs."
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