Page 7 of The Wand of Lore

“That is sad about the curse. I wonder who would do that to him, and besides you, who will cry when he’s gone?” teased Nayla. “Anyways, was it caution that forced you to stare at his tight chest for so long? Or intrigue that forced you to eyeball his arms like meat?”

Gwenneth blushed. “Well, heishandsome, but it doesn’t matter. He will be gone from our village in no time. Even if he wasn’t here to destroy our lives, I would never in a million years want to be with a man that sour.”

“Good, you had me worried, and he is clearly bad news.”

“I’m no fool. He is a danger to us, Nayla. We have to keep our guard up around him. I can’t deny I felt a certain physical pull to him, but he’s a distraction. Our work is too important; wehaveto cure your illness.”

“Good,” said Nayla with a sigh as she sat beside Gwenneth. “I don’t want to be sick, and I’m not ready to share you with anyone. We have a good thing going, you and me. We’re happy together, just the two of us.”

Gwenneth wrapped an arm around her sister’s slender shoulder and nodded. She bit her lip to keep from sharing the truth: she had no idea how to cure her sister or save the village from the growing plague. Her plan to reserve all of her magic to keep Nayla alive was not without flaws. What if she needed it for something else? What about the next mother who showed up at her doorstep in tears, pleading for help for a dying child? It was only a matter of time before Gwenneth would have to choose between saving her sister and saving a neighbor, and when she chose her sister, how then would she keep them safe from the pitchforks? The stranger was a troubling addition to their village, but they had more pressing concerns. Gwenneth had to find a permanent cure, and fast.

No witch had the power to stop death, and death was lurking in the shadows for Nayla. No witch except one, maybe. When Gwenneth had been a little girl, perhaps only four or five years old, accompanying her mother on routine rounds checking up on the ill or the needy around the village, they had visited a man so far gone that he even reeked of rot. His skin was gray, and his wife had kissed his cheek and wished him safe passage to the next life. But Sarri had done what she always did. She closed her eyes, waved her wand, and offered the goddesses her energy. When she opened her eyes again, the man was on his feet, his health fully restored.

“I am alive?” the man said, equal parts question and statement.

“By the grace of the goddesses.” Gwenneth could still remember the warmth of Sarri’s smile, the gentleness of her eyes. She always had a way of making people feel at ease.

The wife let out a messy mix of tears and laughter. “My husband! You were all but dead. Thank you, Sarri. You have saved our entire family by what you have done here today.”

Gwenneth watched through child’s eyes with wonder. She held her tongue until they were alone, walking back to the village. “Mom, that was amazing. And impossible, I thought. You can’t cheat death, and even I know that man was not going to live if wasn’t for you.”

For a long while, Sarri said nothing but continued walking in silence. Once they reached the edge of the village, the woman put her hand on Gwenneth’s shoulder to stop her, then knelt down so she was at the child’s eye level.

“You are right, dear: death will not be cheated. That man was not dead, nor was he so far gone that death had already claimed him. But you are correct to think it was extraordinary to bring him back to full health, and it’s time you learned our little family secret—at least one of them.” She winked at Gwennethas she held her wand in front of the child. “This is not just any wand, Gwenneth. This wand has been imbued with the power of the goddesses.”

“Wow,” whispered Gwenneth, admiring the mystical sound of her mother’s words, even though she didn’t completely understand them.

“Long, long ago, back when the goddesses visited the earth on two legs, the playful goddess Milioka tried to ride the ocean waves like a woman astride a horse. She had such great fun that she didn’t notice the ocean carrying her further out to sea. She was still laughing when a wave dragged her under and held her down. Some say it was the Devil himself, frustrated at the number of goddesses rebuffing his evil. The goddess eventually lost consciousness under the water. As you may know, when goddesses take human form, they are subject to the rules of mortality. Milioka was dying, and perhaps the Devil grew fearful of the consequences of killing a goddess; perhaps he considered his job complete, or perhaps he simply grew bored. We’ll likely never know. Either way, he released his hold on the goddess, and her body washed ashore.

“At just that time, my great-grandmother a hundred generations back happened upon her. Now, she was a powerful witch, and when she saw the goddess, slight of size and completely unconscious, she thought she had come across an ordinary woman and set to work right away saving her life. She supposed it was likely too late, but when she cast the spell to refill her lungs with oxygen, she was inundated with power from the other goddesses who were eager to save their sister. Our great-grandmother a hundred generations back experienced a pain that almost split her body apart. The goddesses were so worried about their sister that they had forgotten the fragile limitations of human witches and almost killed this willing helper. Immediately, they worked to rectify their wrong byimbuing the woman’s rather ordinary wand with their own power. Imagine the surprise of our witchy great-grandmother a hundred generations back when there was an abrupt cessation of pain, and instead, she felt sturdier and more powerful than ever! She easily wielded the power of the goddesses, with only an average loss of energy, and healed the dying woman. Of course, the woman was really the goddess Milioka, who was overjoyed that she had not lost her immortality for good. Since then and forever more, the witches in our family have passed from mother to daughter the great wand of our forebear.”

Sarri held her wand in front of Gwenneth, and for the first time, Gwenneth noticed the detailed carvings of maple leaves, ivy vines, juniper berries, and various flowers all dancing around the sturdy shaft of the cherry wood wand. It was much more beautiful and intricate than Gwenneth’s plain beech wand. Sarri offered the wand to Gwenneth, and though the child was still only an apprentice, she immediately felt power hum through her body from the weighty wand.

“Is this it?” Gwenneth asked with disbelief.

Sarri smiled. “This wand is very powerful. One day, when I am gone, it will pass to you as it once passed to me. When it does, you will have more power than most witches ever find, but it is a great responsibility that you must treasure, protect, and respect.”

“I promise, Mama,” Gwenneth said, and meant it. She couldn’t have known that Sarri would be dragged from her children before they were ready, that Sarri would be tied to a stake, her pockets cleaned of any contraband, and the wand stolen, never to be seen again.

When young Gwenneth finally emerged from her home after that fateful day, she spent hours at the pyre, sifting through the ashes, hoping to find her mother’s wand through the blur of her tears. Nayla sat in a carrier, silently watchingher sister through big baby eyes as Gwenneth’s search became increasingly animalistic. Her arms flailed through ashes, she threw burnt logs every which way, and her ears filled with the unfamiliar beastly sound of her sorrow. Eventually, soft hands pulled her away. She screamed and yelled, finally recognizing Mrs. Owens, who wrapped her arms around the child and held her until the screams gave way to heaving sobs. Mrs. Owens brought Gwenneth and Nayla to her home and fed them honey cakes while she went out and collected their mother’s remains herself. She did not find the wand. Mrs. Owens’s honey cakes tasted sweet and delicious after the week the sisters had spent hiding in their cottage alone, subsisting on whatever root vegetables their mother had buried in the cellar.

When Mr. Owens came home that evening, the two adults dug a pit for Sarri’s seared bones, then they gave the children enough food to last a week and offered to let them stay in their home. Gwenneth refused, wanting to be home in her cottage just in case. The Owenses visited every day for months, bringing milk for the baby and helping Gwenneth maintain the cottage. One day Mrs. Owns suggested that the girls move in with them for good, but Gwenneth shook her head. By then, she accepted that her mother wasn’t coming home, but she couldn’t leave their cottage. It still smelled of the floral spritz Sarri used before going out every day, and sometimes, late at night when her sister was sleeping, Gwenneth could hear her mother sitting by the fire and rustling the pages of a book she had kept near the hearth. For many years, Gwenneth suspected that Sarri was still in the cottage, tucking her daughters into bed at night and keeping watch for villagers with malicious intent.

Though Gwenneth searched for the wand, there was no trace of it. The Owenses could not find it, and she didn’t trust anyone else in the village to ask. It wasn’t until many monthslater that Mrs. Owens came by her cottage with a basket of freshly baked bread and a story for the child.

“You’ll never guess what bit of news I overheard while purchasing a bolt of cloth at the general store.” She didn’t wait for Gwenneth to guess. “There was a man at your mother’s—well, when she died. There was a man there wearing a fancy cloak adorned with the king’s signet. Charles was talking to Leonard, and you know what Leonard said? He said that King Egar himself had ordered poor Sarri’s death, and the stranger had been here for weeks fomenting dissent and anger and blaming her for all kinds of things that only the Devil could do. Fools, the lot of them, for falling prey so easily to the king’s wicked plans, if you ask me. Well, Charles asked the proper question, he did. He asked why King Egar had any interest in a witch all the way over here in Loews Hollow, and Leonard wasn’t sure, but the rumor is that a dragon knew of your mom’s wand and told the king about it to buy favor with him. We can’t know for sure, but he did say the man disappeared with a basketful of her belongings, and nobody has heard from him since.”

“Mom’s wand,” said Gwenneth, who had struggled to follow the story, but understood the most important part.

Mrs. Owens only shrugged. “Quite possibly. Now I don’t know what is so special about her wand, and I don’t want to know. As for the dragon, nobody knows what that’s about either, but Sarri did waltz into town with a dragon on her arm long before you were born. Who knows, maybe it’s the same one. You’d best keep that to yourself and put the wand and all of it out of your head now. For whatever reason, the king took a fancy to it, and when King Egar wants something, he takes it. It belongs to him now, and you’ll never see it again.”

The Owenses had been Gwenneth’s only friends in those early days. Nobody else in the village would look her in the eye whenever she dared venture out. Nobody was outright hostile toher the way they had been to her mother in those final weeks, but neither were they extending invitations for tea. Mr. and Mrs. Owens were the only people who visited their home. They held the baby and taught Gwenneth how to do such tasks as bathing Nayla without getting soap in her eyes, and transitioning the baby to a diet of cooked apples and squash when the time was right. For years, they supplied the children with a new dress every winter and summer and brought occasional meals when times were thin. Gradually, others in the village began meeting Gwenneth’s eyes, and it wasn’t very long before the first villager knocked on her door with the need for a potion to reduce minor pain from a broken wrist. Gwenneth obliged and was happy to slip the coppers she received in exchange into her pockets. She put her mother’s wand out of her mind and took her mother’s place as the village witch. As if a collective amnesia afflicted Loews Hollow, nobody spoke to her again of her mother except for the Owenses. Now, it was Gwenneth who faced suspicious side-eyes from their neighbors, and this time Sarri wasn’t there to save her. This time, Nayla was a young teenager, and Gwenneth had to protect her. She watched her little sister hum as the girl prepared dinner for the two of them. Even alone in their cottage, Nayla still wore her big, full-faced smile, and Gwenneth knew what she had to do. She had to rid the village of the Devil’s Plague and save Nayla, for as long as the people faced indiscriminate death, they would want the sisters’ blood. And as long as there was no cure, Nayla’s life would be in jeopardy. Gwenneth would never have Sarri’s greater command of magic, but she did have a clue as to where the wand might be hidden. If King Egar had stolen it, then she would have to cross Innsbrook, go to Gorenth, and penetrate Gorenth Castle. She didn’t know where to find it or even whether it still existed, but she had to try if her sister was to have any chance at survival. With the wand, perhaps they could even be free.

Chapter Eight: Vaylor

Vaylor galloped away from the cottage, his chest still thumping from the encounter with the bewitching woman. Her wrist, the curve of her neck, the round indent at the small of her neck, gods, her bosom. They had been so close to each other. Vaylor had lain with many women, but never before had he actually felt dizzy from proximity to one. Surely she had used some kind of magic to make him want her so. But no, how could she have while she was passed out and resting on his chest?

One thing was for certain: his father was mistaken about the witch. He had to send a messenger to him to let him know that she was not some vile creature instigating doom. The Devil’s Plague could not be her doing, and nobody else in the village had a shred of a chance at protecting the villagers. He shook his head, and his lips cracked into a hint of a smile. Despite everything, this was a good day.

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