VINCENT MANAGED TO coax Eldra back inside the shelter as the sun rapidly siphoning away his strength under its brightly burning intensity, causing him to become quite lightheaded.
He needed the cool shadows of the dwelling to assist in his recovery.
She came with him willingly when she recognized that Vincent had started to sway on his feet.
"I'm sorry, my dark love" she said. "I did not realize the effect the sun would have on you. I forget you are not mortal at times. Come, seat yourself while I search for something to help you recover."
Vincent fell heavily into one of the ancient chairs, his skin colored red from the direct exposure to the harsh sunlight.
Eldra began to rummage through the items on the table, searching for something among her herbs, and salves that Vincent had retrieved for her, to ease his suffering.
As her hands searched through the items scattered across the table she stumbled upon a small, flat, intricately inlaid wooden box amongst the clutter.
"Where did this come from?" she asked turning him.
Lifting it from the table top, she held the box up for Vincent to see.
"I do not know?" he answered in a weakened voice, a perplexed look on his face.
"Perhaps it was in the pocket of your cloak. Or concealed amongst your mother letters."
Eldra held the box in her hands. Gently running her fingertips over the surface of the smooth inlaid top, a quizzical look upon her face.
"I have never seen this before," she said, carrying it with her, as she moved to the chair beside Vincent.
In her other hand she carried a pot of salve to treat his sun reddened skin that she had discovered in her small apothecary box.
She removed the cork from the opening of the glass container of salve and gently spread a thin coating of it over Vincent's red splotched cheeks.
"Thank you," he murmured.
Tenderly pressing her fingers to his lips.
Eldra replaced the cork inside the opening of the salve placing it on the table, and then lifted the slender box from her lap where she had placed it as she applied the salve to Vincent's face.
She inspected it closely for a latch or some other way to open it, seeing none she held it absentmindedly between her palms.
"I have never noticed this box before, surely if it had belonged to my mother I would have discovered it when I packed away her things?" she remarked, a look of confusion on her countenance.
Vincent lifted the box from Eldra's hands, and he could feel a slight thrumming of power emanating from within, the sensation was so strange he nearly dropped it.
A feeling of apprehension passed through him.
Vincent didn't like how the box felt in his hands, and the story of Pandora's Box came unbidden to his mind.
"Perhaps you should just throw it on the fire. Destroy it." Vincent said, shuddering with unease.
"What?!" Eldra exclaimed.
Glancing at Vincent in surprise.
"How can you even suggest such a thing? If this belonged to my mother she must have meant for me to discover it. I can't just throw it onto the fire, and forget about it, before I discover what it contains."
She snatched the box back from Vincent's hands before he could move to stop her.
The box slipped from Eldra's grasp as she snatched it away from Vincent, dropping it to the floor where it popped open of its own accord.
A great rush of wind swirled through the room when the box unlatched, spilling its contents out onto the floor and Vincent could hear the thrumming intensify, until he was forced to clutch his hands tightly over his ears, lest his head explode.
Eldra spotted a sheaf of paper and a small brass key spill from within and onto the dusty floor.
She reached down to retrieve them from where they lay, and as soon as her finger tips touched the letter and key, the unholy thrumming noise that had threatened to split Vincent's head in two abruptly ceased.
He slowly removed his hands from over his ears, and Vincent observed the look of disbelief on Eldra's face when she saw that her own name, written in her mother's neat script, was inscribed across the front of the neatly folded pages.
Placing the key on the table, Eldra eagerly unfolded the letter, its edges yellowed from age.
And then she began to read the letter aloud:
"My Sweet Summer Child," it began.
"If you have discovered this letter then I am no longer of this earth.
Do not weep for me my child, for I am at peace, sure in the knowledge that I have lived a good and useful life. Be contented in the knowledge that you have always been a comfort to me, and dearly loved.
I have no doubt that I have helped many villagers with my healing gifts, and safely ushered many new lives safely into this world and I am also sure that I have guided many souls into the loving arms of the Old Gods. The ones who have watched over ourselves, and our ancestors."
Reading her mother's words caused a tear to slip slowly down El-dra's cheek, as she continued.
"I was compelled to put pen to paper when your father passed from this world to the next a month ago. Gods rest his soul.
He insisted that someday you would have need of the information contained within these pages, should I be taken from you before you had reached womanhood and so it is with this thought in my mind that I must tell you the story of the night you were born." Here Eldra paused, drawing in a deep breath. Her mother had never spoken of the night she was born, only telling her that it was a hard labor, whenever she had asked as a child.
"I labored from early the previous morning until late the next night. Though old Mary, the midwife, who attended me tried her best to ease my suffering, the pains where so overwhelming, that at times I thought I would leave this world passing onto the next.
Only the determination of delivering you safely into your father arms, kept me from giving up. I held no thought for my own life, as long as you survived the labors." Eldra paused in her reading again.
Closing her eyes against the image of what her mother must have suffered to bring her into this world.
When she had regained control over her emotions, she began once more to read.
" Against all odds, I delivered you safely into the world just past midnight on All Hallows' Eve day. I survived my ordeal, though it left me unable to bear any more babes.
A short time after your birth a local Seer visited our cottage. She insisted on seeing you, and your father, not wishing to offend the woman, bid her enter.
The Seer strode directly to your creche in the corner of the room, lifting you up she held you close before her face, she then closed her eyes, with a look of intense concentration upon her wrinkled face.
When she placed you back into your creche, a look of certainty filled her eyes. The Seer then informed your father and I that you possessed great magic.
She explained that you would come fully into your powers when you met a dark stranger, someone who would love you enough to accept you as you are, as well as who you will become because of him."
Eldra's eyes flew open wide at this revelation.
How could her mother have hidden this from her for so long? She asked herself.
She turned to Vincent, betrayal twisting at her heart.
Vincent sat stiffly in his chair as he listened to this part of the letter, not daring to look in Eldra directly, he bid her to continue.
Eldra released a long-held breath and continued to read her mother's words.
"My sweet summer child, pray do not be angry with me for keeping this secret from you.
You see the ancient Seer asked that we not reveal your gifts, until the day should come when you would need them the most.
She gifted me the wooden box, where I will place this letter when my story is complete. The Seer also told me that the box was guarded by a powerful spell that could only be broken when you, and the stranger you are destined to meet would be together in close proximity of the box.
She cautioned that I should give it to you only when you were ready, and not one moment before, and it was only after your father had died of the fever that I became concerned that the same may happen to me.
One final thing my Sweet Summer Child, the Key enclosed within the box opens a book that the Seer entrusted to me. The book is concealed within the false bottom of my apothecary box beneath the herb bottles."
The letter was simply signed:
Good Luck My Brave Girl. Love Mother.
Here the letter ended, leaving Eldra confused, and vexed at her mother for not living long enough to explain what her cryptic words could mean.
She folded the letter neatly placing it on the table beside the strange oblong box.
Eldra rose from the chair and began to pace frantically around the small room. Vincent watched as she rung her hands in agitation.
He moved to her side, pulling her into his arms, murmuring to her in a soothing manner, urging her to calm herself.
She broke free of his embrace, continuing to pace like a caged animal.
"How could she keep such a secret from me for all these years?" she muttered, over and over, under her breath.
Now twisting at the fabric of her skirts.
Vincent returned to his seat, realizing that Eldra would not be soothed until she had worn herself out from her movements, and so he sat silently watching her walking to and fro, until that time came.
After what seemed like hours Eldra's movement began to slow, until finally they ceased completely.
Once she stopped moving Vincent rose, taking her lightly by the shoulders, and guiding her gently back to the chair beside his own.
Exhausted at last she fell into the seat, picking up the letter, she read it over and over again trying to glean from its pages some small thing that she may have missed upon her first reading.
Finding nothing, she crumpled it in her fist, tossing it to the floor in frustration.
Almost immediately regretting her actions she rose, and retrieved the letter from where it had landed, then returned to the chair smoothing the wrinkles from the paper with her hands.
Tears rolling down her cheeks at her thoughtless act. Vincent placed his hands over Eldra's stilling them.
"My little raven, please we must speak about what your mother wrote in her letter," he pleaded.
Eldra looked at Vincent, knowing he was right, but feeling so filled with thoughts of betrayal from her mother whom she trusted above all other, she could not think clearly, much less speak about it.
For now anyway.
She stood, moving to the door.
And she turned back begging Vincent to let her be alone for awhile. Then she walked out into the gathering darkness.
* * *
Eldra wound her way along the deer paths that crisscrossed the forest's floor. Though she felt calmer now that she had left the suffocating small room, and the imposing presence of Vincent who, though he meant well by trying to embrace her, had instead only succeeded in making her feel like a rabbit caught in a trap within his arms.
She pondered the revelations that her mother's letter had contained.
Could a Seer actually have predicted she and Vincent's meeting some nineteen years ago when she was but a babe?
Did she see Eldra's future so clearly, and if so then why had she not warned her parents of the danger from Johnas and his men?
Perhaps it was her fate to experience all these perils so that she and her dark lover would meet?
All she did know with certainty was if Vincent was her fate, then it was worth all she had experienced, and all that she had suffered to have him beside her now.
She only wished that the Seer would have told her parents whether she and Vincent, would survive the battle yet to come.
* * *
As she wandered through the darkening forest, Eldra realized she was moving closer to her cottage on the edge of the village.
Suddenly a thought occurred to her.
Her mother's apothecary box was still sitting on the sideboard in the kitchen of the cottage and if she could slip unseen, into her former home, perhaps she could find the book hidden within the box's false bottom?
It might contain vital information that she and Vincent could make use of when the village men began searching the forest for them in three days hence.
She hesitated at the sight of field that stretched before her at the edge of the trees.
Eldra studied the other cottages that lay closely to her own, observing them from the shelter of the trees.
All seemed quiet within their walls and no lantern lights shone within their darkened windows.
Hoped all the residence where attending Mass at the large church in the village square, she made up her mind and slipped out of the shadows, then began to swiftly sprint across the field that lay before her, towards her little cottage and the door that lay beyond the garden at the back.
When Eldra ran out of the field onto the road that stretched out in front of her cottage.
She thought she heard a clattering noise coming from one of the back gardens that lay to her right.
Turning her head in its direction, she scanned around herself for any movement in the shadows that surrounded the other dwellings.
Seeing none, she concluded that the noise she had heard must just be some cat or other small animal rummaging through someones garbage for a morsel of food.
Eldra slipped into the cottage through the unsecured back door, which Vincent must have left off the latch when he visited the cottage, she thought to herself.
Making her way into the kitchen, and finding her mother's apothecary box where she had placed it on the sideboard.
Eldra lifted the lid of the box, Its rusted hinges protesting loudly as she did so. She carefully began to remove the glass jars full of herbs, and tinctured from its interior trying desperately not to make any noise, when she heard men's voices approaching the cottage from the road outside.
Eldra flattened her body against the wall at her back, and could feel her heart pounding against her ribs, like the flutter of a trapped birds swings within her breast.
She held her breath, until the voices faded into the distance, moving farther away down the cart-scarred road.
She exhaled slowly, relief washing over her.
She moved from her place close by the wall and resumed delicately removing the few remaining glass vessels from the interior of the sturdy box.
As her fingers scrabbled around the bottom of the apothecary box, abruptly the false bottom shifted slightly, and then slipped into the empty space below it.
Eldra painstakingly removed the thin piece of wood from the boxes interior, doing her best not to make a sound, and gently placing it onto the top of the sideboards beside the box.
She returned her hand to the case, continuing to explore with her fingers for the book that her mother had said was concealed there.
Just as she was beginning to panic as her fingers scrambled about inside the hollow bottom of the box and feeling nothing but empty space, her fingers unexpectedly brushed past the spine of a book wedged against the side at the bottom of the box.
She removed it carefully from where it was wedged and pulled it free, clutching it too tightly against her breast as a wave of relief washed over her.
She had done it!
She had found the book!
Her exhilaration began to ebb as she realized she still had to make her way back across the open field, and slip into the darkness of the trees at the edge of the forest without being spotting.
Then as she turned to leave, she caught a small movement from the dark corner of the kitchen beside the hearth, followed by a sharp intake of breath.
When she peered into the deeper darkness of the corner she could just make out the form of a small child hiding within the shadows, the child looked no older than two summers old.
"Robin?" she called softly, a puzzled look upon her face.
Eldra started to approach the child, but as she did it let out a loud sharp yelp, and scrambled further away from her.
Moving deeper into the corner.
A sad expression slipped over Eldra's face when she saw the fear growing in the Robin's eyes, as he watched her approaching him with her hand out. She backed away slowly, pressing a finger over her lips, silently begging the child to remain silent, as she slipped out of the cottage door and into her back garden, the boy began to scream.
* * *
Eldra hurriedly slipped the book into the folds of her dress as she sprinted back across the field towards the forest, desperately hoping she would make it into its concealing darkness, before the boy could be questioned about what he had seen and before the village men could raise the alarm, coming to search for her amongst the trees.
What had she been thinking going into the cottage alone, she reprimanded herself silently.
She had made an impulsive, wildly dangerous decision in visiting the cottage on her own, and now it may cost her, and Vincent their lives.
Vincent!
What would he do if he found out she had been captured by the villagers? What would they do to him, if they managed take him alive?
She could not let him suffer for her mistake.
The images from her dream came unbidden to her mind as she sprinted through the trees.
Eldra ran, trying to avoid the fallen branches that littered the forest floor beneath her feet, stumbling only once, but regaining her footing before she tumbled top over tail, onto the leaf littered ground.
She scanned around herself frantically, searching in the darkness for the deer trail she had followed on her way to the cottage.
She could barely make out her surroundings in the cloud obscured moonlight. She could hear the far off sound of thunder, as it rumbled over the mountains, and echoed down into the valley.
Good, she though, perhaps if it began to storm then it would make the search for her impossible.
Her footprints would be swept away in the heavy rains, making it impossible for the men to track her through the forest.
While the torrential rains that always accompanied storms in the valley where the village sat would, hopefully, halt their search.
Then she had a horrible thought.
What if it rained so heavily that she would be unable to find her way back to Vincent's small dwelling in the coming downpour?
She could only pray that the deer trail would appear again soon, and then she spotted a worn path off to her left, quickly changing course, she sprinted towards the path.
Eldra did not notice the steep drop off hidden beneath the fallen debris scattered across the forest floor until it was too late.
Her foot found only empty space where solid ground should have been. With a startled cry she lost her balance and plunging over the concealed edge of the drop off, and rolled helplessly down the incline on the other side tearing branches and loose stones free as she fell, the world spinning around her in a blur of motion and fear.
Her head struck against a jagged rock at the bottom of the ravine.
Pain flashed through her for a single, blinding instant, and then all was black.
* * *
The two men rushed into the witch's house, upon hearing the terrified screams of the child coming from within.
They had been patrolling the area close to where the witch's house sat, on Johnas's orders.
He had drafted some of the men at the tavern the night before, into service as Bully Boys, to patrol the village looking for any sign that the witch had returned to the village.
Most of the men who gathered at The Wolf And Lamb, thought Johnas was as crazy as a shit house rat, a nasty piece of work, who used his authority to punish the villagers by forcing them into doing as he desired. There were rumors that he had raped the red haired girl, who used to serve at the tavern, and that was why she had resigned her position as tavern wench. Some even claimed she had been spotted down by the docks, working in one of the bawdy houses. The one owned by Barbara Coltrain.
Though none of these rumors had been confirmed, as far as the man named Ferdy, knew.
As Ferdy and his companion Albert, entered the witch's cottage they glanced around the dimly lit room.
"Is anyone in here? If so make yourself known!" Albert called out, as he moved through the tidy main living space, making his way towards the kitchen at the back of the cottage.
Ferdy thought he heard a slight movement from within the corner of the kitchen by the heart as they entered.
He looked around the room, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness.
"There he is!" Albert shouted.
Starting to rush forwards.
Ferdy grabbed his arm, roughly pulling him back.
"We don't want to scare the little might, Albert." Ferdy said, advancing cautiously towards the frightened child.
"Here now. There's nothing to be aferd of. Me and Albert here, just want to help you. Why don't you come out of that corner, and yer tell Uncle Ferdy what happened?" Ferdy said.
While speaking in a soothingly voice so as not to terrify the boy.
"You know I have a lidl'un about yer age at home. His names Billy. Billy's a kind boy. I bet he would like to meet ye, if ye would just come out of that corner. How about it?" Ferdy asked.
Creeping ever closer.
The child was petrified.
First the witch had tried to get him, and now these men were trying to snatch him, he thought to himself.
"I want my Mammy!" Shouted the boy, then he began to cry loudly.
"Now, now, don't cry little mite." Ferdy pleaded.
"Tell us where yer Mam is, and we will fetch her fer ye. How does that sound?" Ferdy asked the child.
A friendly smile upon his face.
He turned around to Albert, telling him to go knock on the doors of the nearby cottages, see if the boys Mam was in any of them.
Albert snorted at Ferdy in derision, before doing as he was told.
After leaving the cottage, Albert began to knock around at the dwellings close by and in a stroke of luck the child's mother was found inside the second cottage he tried.
* * *
When Mabel Dawes opened the door and saw Albert standing there, his face milky pale, looking like it belonged to a ghost, she almost cried out.
Albert asked her if she was missing one of her pups?
And When she stared at him dumbfounded, Albert explained that a small boy had been found in the witch's house down the road.
Without so much as a by your leave Mabel dashed away to check on her children who were tucked up in bed.
When she returned, her face was as white as a sheet.
Mabel pushed Albert roughly out of her way, waddling in the direction of Eldra's cottage, panic hastening her steps, when she heard Robin calling out for her.
Mabel burst into the kitchen, knocking Ferdy on his ass in her rush to get to her Robin.
She picked him up cradling him in her arms, clutching him closely to her ample bosom.
"There, there, Robin." She tutted.
Then she suddenly thrust him out in front of her, giving the boy a sharp shake.
"What have I told you about sneaking out at night?! I hope you have learned your lesson, you little rogue!" she exclaimed, before giving the boy another tight squeeze.
With that she turned on her heals, carrying the boy back to her cottage, leaving Ferdy sitting on the kitchen floor where she had knocked him, scratching his head.
* * *
Vincent could hear the sound of the thunder breaking over the mountains and his concern about Eldra getting caught in the rapidly approaching storm increased.
Standing in the doorway of the shelter he strained to hear her footsteps returning along the path, but all he could hear was the howl of the wind from the storm rushing through the valley.
Vincent flew out the door in search of Eldra before the storm broke overhead, catching them in its fast moving fury.
He made his way swiftly through the blackness of the forest, calling out her name hearing no answering reply.
Panic began to grip his heart as he continued deeper into the blackness.
Surely she hadn't headed back down towards the river, not after her last near fatal encounter with its rushing waters?
Deciding that even Eldra would not be so foolhardy, he turned away from the rushing of the river, treading carefully keeping his eyes turned down to the earth below his feet, looking for any signs of her passing.
Finally Vincent spotted Eldra's footprint in the muddy earth, she had been traveling on one of the deer trails that wound their way through the forest.
He followed the tracks in the mud of the trail through the trees as they wove their way around the trampled underbrush, then realized that this path was leading to the field close to Eldra's cottage.
The sky grew ever darker as the clouds thickened above him, obscuring the moons glow completely.
Vincent glided across the earth, moving with supernatural grace around the downed branches from the birch trees, slipping closer to the place where the forest met the edge of the field.
He studied her cottage windows, looking for any sign of life inside.
Suddenly Eldra dashed out of the cottage, running at full speed across the field, then ducked beneath the shadows of the trees a little farther down from where he stood.
He was startled to hear the sound of a child's scream shortly after her departure.
He made to follow her, then hesitated, watching as two men ran from behind of one of the neighboring cottages, towards Eldra's in response to the child's cry.
Vincent watched the men for a moment, he recognized them from the tavern. They were among the others gathered at The Wolf And Lamb last evening when Johnas had given his speech.
He started to follow them, then remembered Eldra's mad dash across the field.
If she injured herself running blindly through the trees he would never forgive himself.
A deafening crash of thunder broke overhead, spurring Vincent back into the shadow to look for Eldra.
He could hear her crashing through the undergrowth in her frantic sate, then all was silence.
Vincent's heart began to hammer within his chest as it had done by the river's edge.
He could hear a low moaning coming from beyond where the ground dropped off into a hidden gully and he raced in its direction, realizing Eldra must have run over the edge in her mad dash for safety.
Vincent found her crumpled body laying in a heap on the forests floor, blood flowing from a deep gash on her head where it had struck a rock as she landed.
The smell of the blood was overpowering causing his bloodlust to rise.
Vincent quickly pulled off his shirt, wrapping it hastily around El-dra's head to staunch the flow, causing the beast within him to retreat.
Scooping her into his arms as in a flash, he carried he back through the trees towards his shelter, as the storm unleashed its fury over head.