Chapter 9

I was awoken by the breeze, cold despite the early morning sunlight filling the sky. Birdsong drew my eye to the canopy above and I was partially blinded by the reflections coming off the metallic leaves. Blinking to clear my vision, I sat up, extracting my limbs from the tangled mess of robes and chains. Compared to waking up yesterday I felt much better, less desolate and defeated, and more just lost and alone. Looking around at the glade through the ethereal light reflecting back up through the water from the silver roots was undoubtedly something I’d remember for the rest of my life.

I spent a minute taking it all in before Bast appeared out of the trees on the right side of the clearing with a bulging leather satchel over one shoulder. He strolled closer giving me a grin and a wave when he noticed me watching. I waved back half-heartedly as he approached, stopping on the bank of the poo around me and the great tree.

“Good morning!” he exclaimed with boisterous enthusiasm and giving me what I was coming to realised was his usual broad grin. “Sleep well I hope?”

“I’d sleep better if I wasn’t chained to a tree”, I gave him the best glare I could muster.

“I’m sure you would. As I said last night, I can’t take any risks”, he still looked vaguely chagrinned.

“I’ve been wondering, yesterday you said something about dreams. Care to elaborate?”, he changed the subject as he placed various wild roots and vegetables into a black iron pot hanging over the hearth.

I’d really been hoping he would forget about that.

“Just some stuff about everyone who died and the survivors. Dad.”

He raised an eyebrow pointedly, clearly not going to let it go.

“Stuff such as?”

“Such as leaving them behind, becoming one of the things that killed them.

“Sounds like survivors' guilt”, at my look he continued. “Asking yourself why you lived but not them? Everyone who survives such a tragedy faces it, from soldiers to simple townsfolk.” He shook his head. “It’s not your fault they didn’t survive and it’s not like you brought the wolves to your doorstep. As I said last night, you were caught in the middle of something you had no control over. These dreams are just you tormenting yourself. Trust me, I know.”

A shadow flitted across his eyes and I realised I didn’t really know anything about him. He just seemed so friendly... I'd been trusting him because I wanted –needed- to. I didn't have anyone and I had no idea what I was going to do, so when he'd appeared out of nowhere saying he wanted to help despite knowing what I was, I'd been more than willing to just accept him at face value. Or the human part of me had anyway. Narrowing my eyes, I tried to pierce him with my gaze.

"Why are you helping me anyway? I don't really know anything about you aside from that you're a strange man in the middle of the woods who claims to be a druid. What do you get out of this?"

His expression became a little sheepish.

"Can't I just want to help another living being? And I am a druid."

"No. There's more to it, I'm sure you're not telling me something."

He sighed. "I want to help you because you need help. Because none of this is your fault and you didn't deserve it."

I sensed there was more to it than that.

"And?"

"And the Druidic Circle is directly responsible for what's happened to you. It's our fault even if it is in the past. If you can be saved from the curse then it is my duty to do everything I can despite what the others would say.”

He seemed sincere. I relaxed.

"Fine, but you have to tell me more about yourself."

He nodded with a smile.

“What do you want to know?”

“How did you become a druid?”

He made a show of sitting on the bank, dangling his feet in the water.

“My dad was a travelling scholar, going out documenting the world as he saw it and getting by selling his services as a scribe to the nobility. He was away often but always sent money and my mother and I would work at the bakery, always up at dawn to start the day’s work before everyone else got up. We lived on the edge of a great elven forest far north of here in one of the Free Cities. While my dad was away one year he met and befriended a man, a druid named Tolvir, or uncle Tol as I came to know him.” His gaze drew distant and he smiled fondly in remembrance.

“He was a druid from the nearby forest, living in a small community. As time went on, he’d come check on us for my father and let us know how he was doing. I loved his visits. He’d teach me things about the world and our place in it, show me small magics and help when it was needed”, old sorrow filled his voice and his smile faded. “Like when my mother died.”

Looking up at the shining leaves above us, he took a deep breath before continuing.

“One day some men in chainmail, clearly still drunk from the night before stumbled into the bakery as my mother went in to start work. I wasn’t there. I’d taken the buckets home the night before so instead I went down to the well to get a jump on the day’s work. By the time I got there...” He grimaced. “You don’t need to hear how I found her, just know that she died and I was lost.”

“The owner of the bakery, a nice man who wouldn’t begrudge me a pastry every now and then kept me on to help but I couldn’t stand to be there, working where she died. I stayed home and grieved, crying myself to sleep every night until only a few days later the woman who owned our house showed up with some people. Since my mother had died and my father wasn’t around she was giving it to them for a few coins a day.”

“That’s horrible! How could anyone kick a child out onto the street?!”

He looked at me, a weathered kind of pain in his eyes.

“Some people, especially those in the city, have very different values. Gold is often worth more than a life there. I was twelve, not quite a child, but neither was I a young man.”

Bast’s gaze turned firmly to the fire.

“Suddenly, I was homeless, jobless and at that moment may as well have been an orphan. Tolvir saved me. I spent two days on the streets before he showed up. He went to our house and found someone else living there. Then he went to the bakery where he learned of my mother's death, but of course I hadn’t been back since so they didn’t know my whereabouts. Eventually he found me battered and bruised. Half-starved and trying to hide among some barrels out the back of the tannery. The smell kept most people away, including the other street children who hadn’t taken kindly to me sleeping on their turf.”

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His eyes returned me across the table.

“He took me away, into the forest to live with him and the other druids. He informed my father of what had happened but I never saw him again.”

He’d had it just as bad as I had.

“I understand what it’s like to be lost and alone, but things do get better.” A ghost of his smile returned, never banished for long it seemed. “Just look at me now! Esteemed owner of a tiny cottage in the middle of the woods. How far I’ve come!” he threw his hands up into the air. “But seriously, if I learned anything from my past, it’s that things are never truly hopeless, no matter how much it seems so.”

I admired him in that moment. He’d been through some terrible times and still managed to put it all behind him. t gave me a little hope.

“After all that, I trained with Tolvir and he taught me far more than I’d ever dreamed of knowing. Eventually I became a druid like him and got my tattoo’s. While I’ve travelled around a bit since then, watching over the Greenrock woods is my first actual posting”. Bast looked both proud and sad as he mentioned that. “I’d have come to Glimmerdale eventually. I planned on visiting all the towns and villages bordering me here in the Greenrock Woods, but only got around to seeing a few, mostly those to the north and east so far.”

We sat in silence a moment as we both pondered his past.

“Anyway, enough getting side-tracked! We have things to do! Meditation to teach.”

Slipping into the water he began wading toward me much the same as he had the last two days.

I began panting as the tingling heat and increasing pressure that brought on the transformation built inside of me, only this time it wasn’t as powerful as the previous days. Stepping up onto the mound of roots serving as my tiny island, Bast sat, watching me carefully the entire time. While I still felt vulnerable, and was panting and flushed, I didn’t feel any of the urgency that usually accompanied his approach. It seemed my other half still didn’t know what to make of him, but no longer felt he was a major threat.

Following Bast’s example I sat.

“That didn’t seem as bad as yesterday.”

“It wasn’t.”

He gave me a smile.

“Progress is progress. Now, we’re not going to push things today. Instead we’re going to work on strengthening your focus. Cloe your eyes and we’ll start.”

He had me do the same thing as the day before, drawing the moment in and pushing everything else away. Examining it in the greatest detail I could and locking the picture and feel of it in my mind.

“Now make it more real. We don’t want a still image anymore, we want a living, breathing moment with birdsong, wind, light and life.”

Doing as he said, I added a wave to the grass in my mind, a flutter of wings in the canopy and even Bast himself sitting on the bank of the pool, dangling his feet in the water as he had been only a minute ago. As I added things others slipped to the side and vanished, Bast would be there but the grass wouldn’t move, or the cottage chimney spilled smoke into the air but the sunlight didn’t reflect off the pools surface.

I felt my brow furrow.

“Don’t worry if you can’t get it perfect. The point of this exercise is to improve your ability to focus, holding a full moment in your mind takes time, training and effort but we’ll get there.”

We continued this way until midday, when Bast went to make us some lunch.

He returned with still sizzling plates of roots and vegetables much the same as yesterday.

“Sorry we don’t have any meat. I’ve set more snares but no luck yet.”

“It’s fine. I’d have offered to help but, you know”, I jingled my chains.

We began eating but I had to ask a question that’d been plaguing me for a while now.

“Are you sure this will help me? I mean, it’s nice just to take in a peaceful moment, but I don’t really understand how this is supposed to help.”

Swallowing his mouthful, he replied, “There’s two reasons for what we’re doing. One is getting you to the point where you can truly hold a moment in your mind; a living thing, rather than just a static image. The other is for you the know this place and these moments intimately so you can return to them even when surrounded by chaos and confusion. In a way, you’re learning to use them as an anchor against your emotions and instincts when you feel they might overwhelm you.”

That kind of made sense. One other question sprang to mind.

“What did you mean when you said you’d help me ‘despite what the others would say’? Who are the others? Why wouldn’t they want you to help me?”

He sighed, looking down at his food.

“We were taught that were-creatures were to be killed on sight. That finding balance between their two halves never happened as inevitably there is some disconnect between them. Because of the disconnect they are unstable kill those around them, beginning a downward spiral where their human half loathes themselves while their wolf half feels just the opposite. Not only that, but some believed that even if one was to find balance they would lose it again eventually and we simply can’t risk spreading the curse. It’s our duty to prevent it, seemingly at all costs.”

When he put it like that, perhaps they were right to kill us.

“Don’t worry. I obviously don’t feel that way and you shouldn’t either! “

He must have read what I was thinking from my expression.

“Believing in the worst outcome just makes it come true.” His sincere belief in what he said was obvious as he spoke firmly and with passion. “Also I think the meditation is helping. Just the other day you were bouncing between rage and fear at a light breeze and you said yourself your struggle earlier wasn’t as bad as yesterday. Don’t lose faith in yourself just because someone else feels you’re a danger. The king might order the villages around his castle pillaged and burnt to the ground, but that’s not justification for taking his life. It is the person and what they do that matters, not what they might do.”

“You’re right, but I...what if they’re right. Even if I get through this who’s to say I won’t lose it later? I can’t help but be scared of what might happen.” Visions of me in Jaron’s place sauntered before my eyes and rage stirred within me. I’d never do the things he did.

“Alison calm down. Your eyes are starting to glow.”

I blinked. I hadn’t even noticed, the heat pooling behind my eyes had snuck up on me as if to emphasize my point.

“Sorry.”

“You're right to be scared, but don’t let the fear consume you. We’ll get past this. Give me your plate and we’ll get back to work.”

Sliding my plate over to him, he picked it up and placed it on top of his own beside him.

“This time we’re going to do something different. You’ve gotten very good at drawing in a moment already. Now I want you to focus on your instincts. What are they urging you to do? What does it feel like?”

Closing my eyes, I relaxed and turned my thoughts inward. At first, I felt only the same constant tingling heat in my veins and the pressure hiding within my bones. Focusing on the pressure I realised I could sense it building, growing ever so slowly even when at rest. Pushing my awareness into it I was surrounded by a familiar feeling, something I recognized deep down from all the times I’d shifted or been overrun by my newer instincts. It was myself, the other part of myself. I’d crossed the split in my soul. Now I was aware of it I could feel it inside me, a chasm separating two distinct parts...and it hurt. Each side reached out toward the other with jagged edges, scraping and gouging and I felt it all.

Snapping my eyes open I fell forward onto my hands covered in sweat and gasping for breath.

“Alison! What happened?!” Came Bast’s voice from nearby before swiftly being swallowed by the rushing of blood in my ears.

Deep pain welled up from inside. All I could do was pull myself into as tight a ball as possible, shuddering as what felt like blades stabbed at my insides. I heard frantic movement and the splashing of water but was unable to turn and look. Minutes or moments later, I couldn’t be sure, a new scent filled my nostrils washing across my mind like a wave. It didn’t help but it gave me something else to focus on than the pain.

Slowly the edge on the agony dulled. It grew more and more faint, as though gradually slipping back into the depths of my soul and I found myself lying on the smooth silver bark of the great tree for a third time, completely and utterly exhausted.

“Alison.”

Rolling my half open eyes toward him without moving my head, Bast stared back with his brow furrowed and lips in a grimace. He held a small wooden bowl spilling out powerfully sweet smoke.

“You’re back! Can you move?”

I tried to unravel myself but my arms barely responded.

He grew visibly more concerned at my lack of response. Conflict flittered across his face a moment before his expression grew firm. “I'm taking you inside.”

Placing the bowl at his feet, Bast drew a metal key from within his robes. Gently taking my left arm, I heard a sharp ‘snicht’ and the manacle fell free. Once he’d removed all of them, he slid his arms under my knees and back, lifting me to his chest. Carefully wading into the water, he carried me towards the open door of the cottage. I couldn’t help but groan as he jostled me stepping up onto the bank of the pool.

“Sorry.”

“-s’all right.” I mumbled, barely a whisper.

“What happened?” his head tilted closer to hear.

"-split...in soul.”

He turned a little paler at that, but it didn’t stop him from taking me inside and depositing me directly on a bed.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere”, he rushed out of the room and I drifted into blackness.