Chapter 178

Epilogue

Many Years Later

Atop a sunny knoll, a young woman made her way along a well worn forest path. Her arms were full of flowers and the scarf that she made herself with wool spun by her grandfather and dyed scarlet by her mother.

At the top of the hill was a sun-soaked oak. Before the oak was a small clearing, and at the centre of the clearing was a sun-speckled stone slab. Along the bottom of the moss covered altar, some words were chiselled into the side, hard to make out but still visible—a list of preferable offerings. The goddess was known not to be picky, taking anything that a family might have to give, but she did have some well known preferences. At the top, thrice underlined in bold, it said: NO BABIES.

In the cities there might have been garden temples with beautiful stone statues of the flower crowned goddess: a half skeletal, half full-figured woman with long, tumbling curls. Here in the deep countryside, however, there was only the rough stone and the trees. They were closer to the goddess that way. Or so her mother had always liked to say. The city folk had their own ideas, of course.

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She stood at a respectful distance. The oak tree behind the altar was budding, and a nip of spring was in the air. Hundreds of ribbons hung from the branches, drifting in a gentle, multicoloured array. When the wind whispered, it set the bells to chiming, the silver bobbing and dancing.

She examined the altar. A skull lay on the rough stone. It was clearly very old, the skull, the slab, all of it. Both were weathered with age, pitted and yellow. The bottom half of the skull’s jaw was missing. The nose a gaping wound. The eye sockets…

The young woman gasped.

The skull was looking at her.

One intense eyeball, distinct with an iris of vivid blue, swivelled to look directly at her. She held still, not daring to move. Not daring to breathe. The eye snapped wide, then shut. She stepped back, and a single butterfly emerged from the eye socket to dance across the altar. Its wings were sapphire blue.

The young woman breathed out. She laid down her flowers, made her prayers, and wound the woollen scarf around the base of the skull. She left, feeling lighter, and skipped down the hill.

The butterfly remained in the tree, wings quivering gently.

Then it took flight, and the ghostly sound of purring and clicking needles followed it as it fluttered out over the treetops.

THE END