Page 51 of The Moorwitch
Finding a stump to sit upon, I take out white ounce-thread and a needle from my threadkit and begin stitching my shawl. The light here is poor, and I have to squint to see what I’m doing.
Overhead, a cold wind rattles the branches. I feel like a rabbit hidden in a hole while a hungry wolf prowls above, searching for a way in. I keep my head down and my eyes focused on my stitches, working as quickly as I can. The familiartinkof my needle against my thimble is little comfort in this dark forest.
“There,” I say, after twenty minutes of embroidering. I hold up the shawl with its new pattern of knots curling up the hem like a vine. “That’ll do.”
I throw the shawl around myself and then draw a long breath before channeling, the memory of yesterday’s hovering charm making my heart squeeze preemptively. It is as if I’ve touched a hot stove, only to force myself to touch it again.
“You can do this,” I murmur to myself. “It’s not always that bad.”
I channel, wincing at the slight pressure it causes in my heart. But this time, thankfully, the pain is manageable. The embroidery on my shawl glows briefly, and then the spell is done.
“Counterwards,” I say with no small measure of satisfaction. And to think, in our fourth year Margaret Appleby said they were a foolish waste of time because Moirene sisters, with their devotion to education and other social duties, didn’t need to know battle magic.
Ducking my head, I pull my shawl tight and push forward.
Protected by the thin muslin of my shawl, I see the moment my spell takes effect, because the new stitches begin to glow faintly. I’ve stepped into some powerful wards and feel them prickling over me as I pass. My shawl grows hot, as my spell works to repel the magic pressing against it. The edges begin to flutter, though there is no wind to speak of this low beneath the trees.
I’m getting closer.
My stomach knots as my sense of foreboding grows stronger. Everything in me wants to turn back, to flee this place where the trees twist around each other like entwined serpents. Every step is harder to take, and I realize I’ve slowed to a crawl.
“Discouragement spell,” I say through my teeth, feeling it lean on me with the weight of a horse.
Someone has been clever indeed, working with subtle yet intricate magics. This is not like the fae ward around Blackswire, but rather these spells were designed to escape notice. Only a Weaver might understand what they are, and only then if they were specifically looking for such magic. It took me far too long to recognize what was happening, that these trees are laced with power.
There are no counter-wards for discouragement spells; instead, one must marshal the willpower to press through and endure them. I need to rally my spirit by focusing on what I stand to gain if I make it through this ward; I need to fix my eyes on the greater goal.
That’s simple enough: I think of magic.
I remember the day I stood before the Moirene Council in Westminster Abbey, the great cathedral roof soaring over my head. The triptych of the Fates, immortalized in stained glass, gazed down as I took my vows and stitched the trefoil knot into my collar. I remember my pride, my relief, my joy. For the first time in my life, I felt secure.Safe.
I think of how it feels to stand at the head of a classroom and guide a wide-eyed group of little girls and boys through their first spell samplers, their needles clumsy in their eager hands. To see the delight in their eyes when they complete a new, difficult spell.
And then, insensibly, another daydream finds its way into my thoughts like a stray bird flitting through an open window: myself sitting on the great steps in Ravensgate’s grand foyer, teaching Sylvie how to Weave an illusion knot, to summon flowers of light, and when I look up, there is Conrad below, watching with the softest of smiles on his lips, mischief shining in his proud tiger-gold eyes.
Startled and shaken, I blink the vision away, and realize I’ve made it through the ward. The weight of the discouragement spell broke like a fever once I’d summoned enough willpower to force my way through it, and now I can breathe easier.
I hurry on, as if I might escape that last, unbidden image and the sudden eruption of butterflies it hatched in my belly.
I tramp up a hill, through more wards, but these are not as strong as the first ones. The threads on my shawl are beginning to burn away, ashes like dust on my shoulders, but the spell did its job.
I reach the crest of the hill, and there it is.
“Oh,” I breathe, looking down in the shallow depression below. “Of course.”
The door to Elfhame is obvious at once: a ring of standing stones, ten all told, tall and unnatural and silent in a clearing.
No insects here, nor birds or beasts. Not even the wind rustles the treetops. It’s as if I’ve stepped into a cathedral at midnight, alone with only the Fates to notice me.
The ground below is velvet moss for nearly twenty yards in diameter, not a patch of mud to mar it. It feels like it’s set outside time, in its own pocket of reality. It might have been a thousand years since another living creature set foot down there. And all around the clearing, the ancient boulders stand improbably balanced.
Carefully I make my way down the hill, sliding on the loose dead leaves and damp loam. Once at the bottom, I slowly approach the circle, feeling caught in a different sort of enchantment entirely—one of wonder. I draw near the closest stone, studying it for any sign of instructions carved into it, a clue of how to activate the doorway.
Lifting my hand, I reach for the stone, some primal part of my soul eager to feel its ancient face against my palm.
A flicker of movement catches my eye. I turn my head, eyes chasing a figure in my periphery—is that awoman, pale as dawn light?
Then my hand touches the stone, and I am thrown violently off my feet and hurled through the air. I collide into a tree with a shout, the wind knocked from my lungs. There I lie a moment, trembling from the aftershocks of the repulsion spell which still crackle through my body.