Ides of the May (Children of the May 2 - updates weekly)

Chapter Fourteen: The Well (part one)

I led Tommy up the bank, towards the edge of the Lands of the Lake. The night had taken a turn for the thunderous, and the horse was so startled by the occasional flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder that I had to stop and calm him more than once. Each time, however, he quickly regained his senses and followed me again. Although by that point I was becoming scared, gripped by the conviction that someone was following us through the woods. I could hear scampering footsteps behind us, sploshing about in the wet ground. The last crash of lightning, much closer than the rest, carried to us on a ripple of childish laughter.

I tried not to upset the horse by moving too quickly, but I kept looking over my shoulder into the blackness. One time my glance coincided with a crack of lightning and I knew I was right: I saw a golden-haired child flashing through the trees. Once more I heard that musical laugh: a small girl’s laugh.

‘Come on boy. Gee-up,’ I said to Tommy, trying to speed him through the trees.

There was another lightning crash, and I saw the little girl again, only now she was not behind us, but standing in our way. The last time I had seen her she had been a babe in my sister Nerina’s arms, but now she was recognisably her mother’s daughter, although she had yet to acquire Nerina’s severity. Her hair and dress were soaking wet from the rain.

‘M’Uncle?’ she said with childish seriousness.

I looked around me: surely Nerina wouldn’t have let my niece out alone on a night like this. When I looked back, the girl was at my feet. She raised her arms, asking to be picked up.

‘M’ wet,’ she said.

I didn’t feel able to refuse her. Besides, no one in my family had ever asked me to hold them before; this was a pleasant novelty. I couldn’t leave a child of no more than two or three out on her own in the forests. I reached down for her. I would have to summon my courage and take her close to the castle. I could leave her at the gate.

‘Come here, Natalie,’ I said. My stutter has always seemed to lessen quite naturally when I talk to animals or very young children.

But before I could lift her up, she was snatched away from me.

‘Goodness, brother,’ said Nerina’s cold, imperious voice. ‘You may have grown a few inches, but you’re improved in neither looks nor sense. Did you really believe you could enter Mother’s lands without her knowing of it? Her powers may be on the wane, but she’s not turned fully fool.’ My sister stood in front of me with Natalie in her arms. The little girl reached out towards me, struggling playfully with her mother.

Nerina looked no different than she had the last time I had seen her, on the day my mother gave me over to Sir Dinadan. She was some several hundreds of years old, but maintained the appearance of a beautiful woman of twenty-five or thereabouts. Her hair was brown and straight, and she wore it falling lightly over her slim shoulders. She wore a thin white dress, ornamented only by a silver belt around her waist. Despite the thunderstorm she was quite dry.

‘L-L-L-L-Let me leave, N-Nerina. I-I-I-I-I’ve finished h-here. I-I-I’ll not c-come again.’ I felt a squirm in my belly. The last thing I wanted was to be forced to see my mother.

Nerina lifted her hand up to catch the rain. Natalie lifted her face and stuck out her tongue, following her mother’s lead. For a moment I thought Nerina had chosen to ignore me; that this was her signal I could go.

‘I’m not going to have to make you come to the castle, am I, brother?’ she said without looking at me. ‘I would rather enjoy the exercise, but I fear it would be a bad example to set my daughter, young as she is. I wouldn’t want her repeating my actions on the servants, or your companions of the road.’