This is the story I submitted for Week 4 of The Great Challenge. A 52 week challenge put on by Dean Wesley Smith at WMG Publishing in which I must submit a short story of 2,000 to 15,000 words every week. I will leave this story up until about Friday next week, then likely take it down and make it available as an eBook on Amazon.
Last week’s story will soon be available as an eBook on Amazon, follow my Amazon Author Page to be notified as soon as it is:
Stories from Week 1 & 2 are also available purchase on Amazon:
The Fragrance of Sedition
I heard it told once that there is a change that occurs in Vellum when it is prepared for use in incantation writing. This change causes a new substance to develop that lets off a beautiful fragrance. Then, when a good Incant Scripter adds their designs to the paper, or the papyrus or the parchment, whichever it maybe, it adds another intricacy to the fragrance.
It is a believable thing to me; I thought as I walked through the aromatic aisles in the Vellum Emporium. My fingers trailed over each shelf, following their rows through the store, the ridges in the woodgrain rippling under my skin. Intermittently my fingers would snag on the corner of an errant Vellum sticking out further than it should.
Searching the shelf with careful pats I straightened the paper until the entire self was a row of perfect piles. Like the square-hewn rocks in my grandmother’s garden. I continued past the shelf, it didn’t have what I wanted.
A bell rang and I knew another shopper had joined me in the Emporium. She engaged in conversation with the Velleur (a craftsman of parchment, papyrus and paper), he was eager to seat her in luxury and bring trays to her, presenting them with poetic descriptions of their merits.
It interested me, how each Incant Scripter had his or her own methods and I assumed style. I couldn’t say for sure if we had differing styles, never having seen the works of another. Scripters only scripted, they were not to read or use anyone else’s scripts.
Enactors could read any script they got their hands on, some were costly though and held close by their enclaves. When a good Enactor read out a script and applied their power to it, the script came to life, some beautiful, some only practical. The knowledge Enactors used in their works was as foreign to me as the works of other Scripters.
I stopped at the next shelf and breathed in, I sighed out the scents that swirled and caressed my cheeks and nose. This wasn’t the shelf either.
The melodious tones of my fellow Scripter floated through the shop, bouncing off walls and stroking the pages stacked on each shelf. I scowled, my eyebrows furrowing and the pointed tips of my ears pressing towards my skull. She would do well to speak in hushed tones, otherwise she would spoil the fresh canvas that each page in the Emporium offered to Scripters.
I lifted one page that her voice had touched and pressed it to my cheek. I brushed it against my skin and closed my eyes. It was unspoiled, unmarred. She was not very powerful than. There were some Scripters sensitive enough they made their own pages for their scripts.
While I was sensitive, I had been able to get away with shopping in respectable Emporiums and always taking the bottom page, or pages that had been sealed due to their impressionable natures. However, I always spoke sparingly in the Emporiums, out of respect for the Velleurs that ran them.
A sunbeam broke through a window and touched the crown of my head. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth, like the hand of my grandmother resting on me. Memories of my grandmother and sunshine belonged together. Her and grandfather had been skilled Fleurers, their hands always in the soil, always breathing in the scents of their garden.
My childhood had been spent in their garden.
“Omia,” I’d whine the Fae word for grandmother, “my sisters are teasing me again.”
“What now Rosebud?” she would ask, using her pet-name for me.
“They pull my braids and tell me I am a shame. I can offer nothing to my family because I cannot read and my thumbs are brown.” My family heritage was all Fleurers and Enactors.
“Did you speak to your mother?”
The question brought a feeling a desperation. Was Omia going to agree with Mother and tell me to obey her?
“She said I was to be the mature one, ignore what they say and stay out of their way.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous. You’re their younger sister, they should be told to act their age.” I cried with relief. The sound of Omia’s shears snipping at her rosebushes stilled, I felt her arms wrap around me like a summer breeze, “I am sorry such weight was placed on your shoulders, Rosebud. Come, I will wash up and take you somewhere special today. A secret outing for the two of us.”
Omia took me to a Vellum Emporium. The Velleur had been very old, a friend of hers perhaps. I could smell the years in his long hair and he allowed me to run my fingers around the tips of his wizened ears and across his wrinkled brow. Then, he took one of my hands, folded my pinky, ring finger, and middle finger down, and pressed my index finger to my lips.
I nodded, slowly, even at that young age understanding the solemnity he begged of me. He took me down each row, my favourite shelf being the one that was broken by a velvet cushion. My hand slid across the cushion’s slick surface one direction, and snagged on its fibers the other direction. It felt much like the tongue of the cat who curled up there and slept. The spot carefully chosen for the sunbeams cascading from a high window and landing there all hours of the day.
My feet moved over the creaking hardwood floors of his Emporium. He guided me with gentle touches on the shoulder or elbow. I found myself in a corner, where the lower shelves, the ones at my height, were full of leatherbound books.
Unable to stop myself, because the notebooks called to me, their siren song drowning out the purring of the cat on the velvet cushion. When my hands paused on one notebook the man smiled. I could tell because there was a huff of air, a foreshadow of laughter but the laughter never came, because he didn’t dare taint his wares with a sound.
His old hands moved mine aside so he could lift the notebook. I wanted to cry when it was gone from my palms. But when he opened it and fanned the pages beneath my nose I did cry, because the scents that exploded out from each page sang an incredible song.
A song of liberty. A song of strength and freedom. A wild song that could not be tamed by fear or tempered by good sense. Hope. Purpose. A calling.
I took the notebook from him and ran my hand down the first page. It was blank, not like the reference books in my father’s library. The only books I was allowed to touch. Those pages had scratches and grooves in them.
This page, it was sacrosanct. Untouched. Whole and holy. I gasped when I felt a tear fall from my face and it marred the page. In a moment of reflex I lifted a shoulder and turned from the man and Omia, who had followed our journey through the Emporium noiselessly.
Her reassuring hand on my shoulder told me it was alright. Then I felt a nod quiver down her arm and into the fingers that rested on my collarbone. The man huffed his smile again and pushed the notebook deeper into my hands. I closed it, locking my tear of joy between its covers for the rest of time.
Wrapping my arms around it I held it against my chest like a dear friend in a long-missed hug. My grandmother led me out of the shop and as we left, the doorbell ringing behind us, I cracked the notebook open.
On instinct alone I pushed my nose into the pages and I whispered, “You are mine. You have the fragrance of destiny. Of a GOOD life, a life well lived, and I claim you for myself.”
I never had issues with my sisters again. Every morning I took my cane and made my way down the road to Omia’s house. There I spent my days in her garden or in the attic at the top of her narrow house. It had a little balcony that hung over her garden. There I sat with my notebooks, filling them with Incant Scripts.
Omia had a tutor come once a week to explain the laws of Scripting to me. Plus the small rules of etiquette, such as silence in a Vellum Emporium, and never touching the Vellum of another Incant Scripter. The most important thing I had to remember was this: Scripters were to create Incant Scripts that upheld the core values of our society.
To glorify HE who Created us.
To Uphold the TRUTH
To SERVE those less fortunate.
To SHARE Prosperity with ALL.
Secondary to that was this: As a Scripter I must ONLY Script. I was to never Enact the Scripts I wrote. This was implemented to act as a check on my influence and power. It kept corrupt Scripters from creating dark Scripts and then Enacting them.
It was also why Enactors and Scripters were kept so isolated from each other. I’m not sure when my isolation from my Enactor sisters began, it was a gradual progression that seemed to begin in childhood every time my mother told me to bear their taunts in silence.
When grandfather passed away I moved in with Omia to keep her company. When she passed I hired a Fae couple from one of the lesser houses. She was inclined as a Keeper, and he was inclined as a Fleurer. So he cared for my grandparent’s garden and she cared for their home. And I spent my days touring the Vellum Emporiums for the perfect Vellum for my Scripts, or tucked away in my study pouring my heart and soul onto the pages I brought home.
I jumped when a small animal bumped against my ankles. Its plush fur clung to my skirts. Any other day I would have knelt to sink my hands into its luxurious coat and revel in its purring song. Today though, I had found the perfect Vellum for an incredible Script.
Audrei, the Keeper of my house, had been struggling with depression. There was pain in her past that weighed her down and kept her from feeling joy and freedom. She’d lost a baby a year earlier and the depression deepened. I mourned for her because there was little I could do to free her.
I intended to write a script for her, one that would free her from the dark cloud of despair that shadowed her heart. For it, I needed a script with the fragrance of liberty. An aroma that made your mind soar with possibilities. It was so suiting that I found it on this window-facing shelf in the warm hope of a sunbeam.
My hands floated above the shelf, I let them tickle each Vellum on it. When I felt the one that tickled back, I lowered my hands and picked up the top piece. Raising it to my nose I breathed in deeply.
The possibilities in this sheet of Vellum were so vast I could almost see it. Except my mind had no concept of what sight was, so instead it was a feeling, with the weight of a hug, leaving you comforted but alone again, and the glory of a belly laugh, leaving you exhausted but delighted. This could be the cure for depression, I couldn’t see how it wasn’t.
There was one last test. It needed to taste sweet, not like victory, but like a lick of ice cream on a hot day. Only the very tip of my tongue brushed against the edge of the Vellum. I jerked back, it was sharp and it had stung. The flavour was, bitter. Like consequences after doing the right thing. They weigh heavy because you had no other moral choice. The only thing more bitter than the consequences was the guilt if you hadn’t done it.
The tips of my ears dug into my skull. If I didn’t have years of practice in my discipline I would have cursed the Vellum and let it fall to the floor. I smacked my lips and scraped my tongue over my teeth to try and rid myself of the taste. It stuck with me though.
I had to accept this Vellum. Like my first notebook so many years earlier this Vellum was placing a demand on me. It was placing a call on me. I heard an old Velleur say once that the demand for different types of Vellum was cyclical.
Was I seeing the turnaround of a cycle in my lifetime? I placed the Vellum back on its sister sheets. Scripters could take as many sheets as they thought they may need for a Script. I trailed my fingers down the side of the stack. A pit formed in my stomach, this was a large stack. The urgency hummed through the Vellum, up from the bottom of the stack, and into my hands. Already I could feel my throat warming to the task of speaking my Scripts onto the pages.
This Vellum was not suitable for an anti-depressant script though. This Vellum was meant for something much bigger. Something world-shaking. I didn’t know that for sure, because I have never Scripted something that big, but I had Scripted some larger things before and this was so much bigger than any of them that I could only imagine.
My lungs felt ready to burst, they also were preparing for the task ahead of me. I closed my eyes and pulled the stack of Vellum to my chest. Every last page called to me, begging for their story to be written, for their truth to be brought to the surface. I walked to the counter, memory guiding every step without once brushing against any of the shelves or table between where I found the Vellum and the waiting Velleur.
He took the Vellum from me and placed it on the scale. He scratched something into his records. Packing paper rattled as he folded it around the stack of Vellum, and the large metal spool of cotton twine sounded like a coffee grinder as it turned.
The Velleur pressed the package into my hands. I cocked one ear and he whispered with mirth in his voice, “She went out while you were studying this stack. Thank goodness, she sure was chatty for a Scripter.”
I rolled my eyes at him and grinned with half my mouth. He huffed again and with a cordial hand on my elbow helped me to the door. For the dozens of times I’d visited his Emporium through the years I still didn’t know his name, that was how little we conversed, but our silence was companionable.
My mind was focused on the package, now tucked under my arm while I prepared to use my cane to navigate the walk home. So, when he spoke again it was jarring.
“You’ve been coming to this shop for years Caecilya, always very intent, and I’ve been trying to work up the courage to ask if I might call on you.”
I froze. Was he? I turned so my elbow shifted from his grip. The heat from his body radiated towards me. The years had prepared him for my silent questions. I didn’t dare speak in his Emporium.
“Yes, I wish to call on you, our family houses would greatly benefit from an alliance.” It didn’t sound romantic, while the prestige of our people and the vast time we spent on artistic pursuits suggested a romantic people, we weren’t. Most powerful houses were concerned with one thing: vying for more power and closer proximity to the Eight Emissaries.
Due to the nature of our contrasting callings, my sisters and parents as Enactors and myself as a Scripter, I lived in isolation compared to most houses. I was a house unto myself. Why, then, would another house wish to unite with me?
It meant one of a few possibilities. My Scripts were of higher quality than I realized, they had always afforded me a comfortable lifestyle, and my Reckoner (the Fae that cared for my finances and legalities) told me I could afford more if I wish. I didn’t wish, I was comfortable where I was, I wanted to be left in peace to Script.
Or this man had the freedom to marry for romance, for unpractical reasons, and if that was the case it was quite touching. Flattering even. A sweet thought, that perhaps somebody desired to woo me.
Or he wanted a chance to get me alone.
The skin on the back of my neck rippled with bumps, like a winter wind had kissed my nape. I leaned away from the heat of the Velleur. For the sensitive Fae male, interested in a Fae female, my body language would be answer enough.
I left the Emporium, still shaking. This would be the second Emporium I had to avoid. By habit my cane tapped along the cobbles. I lifted my feet higher than the average person; I could tell by the sound of my footfalls compared to theirs and the numerous times my sisters mocked me for how I walked. It was the best way to make sure I didn’t trip on uneven ground.
My cane ‘thumped’ when it hit dirt. Road dust from an alleyway that intersected my path swirled around my ankles and coated my wooden clogs. I turned, as if to adjust the package under my arm, but I took the opportunity to tilt my head and listen for anyone on the sidewalk behind me. To make sure nobody was following me.
There was only silence down the street. It was a quiet day with not a lot of shoppers out and about. I chided myself, it was ridiculous to think that just because a man showed a little interest he would follow me when I spurned him.
It was because of my paranoia, however, that I paused there long enough to hear her crying. I leaned towards the sound, forgetting my self-concern and worried that perhaps someone was injured and needing help.
I knew instantly she was human. Their bodies secreted different scents than Fae adults. Her sobs were muffled, like she was trying to hide.
“Hello?” I called down the alleyway, the sobs paused, but then a pained moan and a gasp gave her away. I tested the space with my cane. Stepping down off the cobbles into the dust I took a few tentative steps into the alleyway. It felt cool on my skin, like the sun was blocked from peering into this narrow space.
I moved slowly down the alley, they were often a place that objects were abandoned or stored, so I didn’t want to bump into or trip on anything.
“You sound like you’re in pain.” I spoke again.
A hiccup and gasp answered.
I stopped when the sound was at its loudest, and her human scent wafted up towards me from the ground. I turned slightly, doing my best to point my face in her direction. I knew it was a woman, there was a distinct scent that women of any species have.
Subtly, so she wouldn’t feel subconscious, I sucked in a breath through my nose. Perhaps the scents around her could give me a clue to what was wrong. I regretted the action. A vile, familiar scent punched me in the gut. Standing like a statue I focused on making myself breathe again, but each time I took a breath it punched me again.
Then it was grabbing my wrists and pinching the skin on my arms. I bit my lip to resist the sobs and screams that answered the memory. My eyes slammed shut, and I raised a shoulder to protect myself from him, the phantom that made me turn to listen to the streets behind me. The phantom that haunted me any time Audrei and her husband left for a few days to visit family.
“I smell blood,” I said. It wasn’t a strong scent, but mixed with the other scents it was repulsive. “Are you bleeding badly?”
There was a long pause. She was still trying to measure how much she could trust me. Gauge why a Fae would be concerned for the wellbeing of a human. It wasn’t a secret that humans got looked over in our society. They often avoided the Fae cities because there was no opportunity for them there. The Fae of lesser morals were even rumored to take advantage of the weaker species.
“It’s not serious, just a split lip and some scrapes.”
I thought back. To his demanding body, taking what it wanted in the darkness of my blindness and the isolation of my life after Omia passed away. How I pleaded and how he only growled in my ear. The slightly longer canines of a mature Fae male had pressed against my ear. They pressed against other parts of my body too, hard enough they drew blood, and I could still feel the pucker of scar tissue a decade later.
Taking a breath, I pushed back the panic that threatened to take control. “You’re likely sore though. And still scared. Why don’t you come back to my house with me. I’ll get you something to eat and drink. A warm bath perhaps.”
Again, a long pause. Her breathing was ragged and shallow. Would she pass out from shock? “Why do you care?”
“Because it is up to us to help each other where we can.”
“But I’m a human.”
I wanted to laugh, but now was hardly the time. “Child, I know, I could smell it from the end of the alleyway. But you have a soul and a spirit, a brain between your ears and a heart pumping blood through your veins. Just like I do. I know there may be some of my kind that don’t agree with me, but I am no better than you and if I can’t serve a stranger in need what business do I have breathing up precious air?”
“I, I can’t pay you back.”
“Nor would I ask you to. Come, in the very least hide within the safety of my home long enough to get your wits about you.”
Then I turned and started walking away. Because I knew that if I hadn’t said enough already to convince her of my good will, there was nothing I could say. I stopped before re-entering the street proper, “come now, you will feel a world better after a hot bath.”
I knew because I had spent the last decade trying to scrub the feeling of what just happened to her, off my skin. I also knew that if she didn’t leave this alleyway now, her mind would be stuck in its gloom the rest of her life. Like I had been stuck in Omia’s house since the night he followed me home and pushed through the front door.
Instead of waiting for her to come, feeling pressured by me, I stepped up onto the cobblestones and resumed my walk home. This time when I turned to listen it wasn’t strange men following me I worried about, but rather if she chose to accept my hospitality.
She did, I could hear her small feet shuffling in the dirty street, next to the cobblestone sidewalk but not on it. My shoulder’s pulled down, ashamed by the ridiculous laws The Eight Emissaries passed about acceptable human behaviour in Fae cities. They weren’t allowed on Fae sidewalks, or in Fae bathing houses. They were not to be served with the same cutlery or dishes as Fae.
It was a miracle she responded to my questions at all. I’d heard there were Fae that hired humans as cheap labor on their estates or in their businesses. I was ashamed to hear the rumors of how those servants were treated.
The perfume of Omia’s roses greeted me the moment I turned down my street. I pushed open the wrought iron gate, holding it open for my guest until I felt her hand take the weight of it. Then I walked up the stone pathway, enjoying the smell of lush grass and cypress bushes that stood sentry for my front door. Turning the large brass knob, its surface like cool silk in my hand, warming at my touch, I stepped into the house.
Tapping with my cane I found the hall tree and umbrella stand. Dropping my cane into the umbrella stand I removed my cape and hung it on the tree. Footsteps on the stair told me Audrei was coming down to greet me. Her pause and gasp told me my guest had followed me as far as my door.
“Lady Caecilya, you have company?”
“Yes Audrei, could you help her get cleaned up?”
“Of course my lady.”
I turned to direct my speech to the doorway, unsure where she stood. “What state are your clothes in? Are they torn?”
“Y-yes my lady. But not badly.”
“Audrei, would you find her something comfortable to wear as well? I think some of my older dresses that are in storage may fit.” I meant the dresses from my childhood, Fae stand quite a bit taller than humans, but Audrei would know what I meant and she would find something. She knew every item that was in my house and where it belonged. She should, it was a special skill of any with Keeper inclinations.
“Yes my lady. Shall I get her something to eat and drink as well?”
“Yes. And we will all eat together in the dining room tonight.”
“Very well my lady.”
I turned again to my guest, “Perhaps you would like somewhere to lay down until then?”
“I really don’t need to be a bother. A glass of water and an old coat and I can be on my way.”
“Nonsense, if you had anywhere worth going to you’d be there already instead of here. Accept our gift of hospitality.”
She responded with silence. I heard every rattled breath and nervous fidget though. My body hummed with tension, I felt like a harp string, tuned too high and ready to snap.
“Audrei I will be in my study until dinner.”
“Very good my lady.”
I left, walking with assurance across the foyer and up the stairs. In my own house outsiders would likely not notice I couldn’t see, I was so sure of where everything was and adept at moving through the familiar surroundings.
My package was still under my arm, and when I entered my study I dropped it on the desk and collapsed into my chair. The old chair, it belonged to my grandfather, held me like an awkward hug. Like the hugs he gave that were all angles and good intentions, but no knowledge of how one comforted a young girl.
I reached out and fiddled with the twine on the package. I wouldn’t open it just yet. Because I knew, though I bought it without knowing what it was for, I knew now it was for this girl. The girl I found in the alleyway in a moment of my own paranoia.
A girl suffering from a recent trauma, while I walked through my days like a ghost, a ghost of the woman I was becoming before he took a piece of my identity from me. Did he know he carried it still? Unlikely.
I didn’t stay in my study long. I needed to know more. For years I lived in blissful ignorance of humans. The reports of humans living under abusive task masters, or their exclusion from the general wealth and peace of the Fae provinces, so they had to fight over the sparse fertile land left in the other areas of the world, these things never concerned me before, because I would never do such things. But I’d done nothing to improve their lot had I?
I’d done nothing to serve them and bring prosperity to them. My Scripts had always been made with myself or other Fae in mind. The package of brand new Vellum on my desk was not for the Fae. I knew that for sure. But I had to know more about her before I committed to who it was for.
The hall to the guestroom required me to move slower, I didn’t visit this part of the house as often, it housed Audrei and her husband and I liked to give them privacy. I hesitated, what if Audrei had placed her in a different room and I was about to knock on the wrong door? It would be a humiliation to do such a thing in my own home.
I knocked anyways, softly. The response was slow, but my ears picked up the rustle of blankets. I hope I hadn’t woken her. If she was anything like me, sleep would be hard to come by over the next few months.
“Yes, my lady?” she asked.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I have some questions for you.”
“Of course, anything to repay your generosity.”
I paused. I didn’t want her to feel that she owed me. Everything today was a gift. I was giving all of this to her and didn’t expect anything in return. In a way I was giving this gift to my past self because nobody had been there to give it to me.
“Please, would you start by telling me your name?”
“Wihenna.”
The name sounded breathless, even when she seemed calm for the first time since I found her. It was a charming name for a quiet slip of a thing like her. She moved with her feet making barely a sound on my hardwood floors.
“Please, my lady, won’t you come in?”
“Is there a chair I might sit in?”
“Yes, there’s one here to the right of the door. A tall wing-backed chair.”
I felt my way through the threshold and along the wall to the chair. Once settled I listened to her move. When she had settled too, I did my best to turn my face to her.
“What are you doing in our city, Wihenna?” I winced because it sounded like an accusation hidden in a question. The last thing I wanted to do was put her on the defensive. She breathed a sigh of relief when I corrected myself, “What I mean to ask is, what brought you here? Is there an employer you’d like me to send word to?”
“No. I’m not employed exactly.”
“Then you are looking for work?”
“Not exactly. I was brought here by someone.”
“Brought here for what?”
“Well, some men came to our village, in the mountains. The winter was so harsh that we were all quite hungry. An old woman suggested us younger girls entertain the Fae visitors with hopes that they would show us favor.”
My stomach churned. Prostitution was prohibited in Fae society.
“One man took a liking to me, because I’m taller than the other girls, and good deal prettier.”
I nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“So… I came to the city, he told me he could find me a job in a really nice house, as a maid or something.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No. All I wanted was something to eat, my lady, honest.”
“I believe you child. Some men don’t ask, and some men tell lies.”
She was sobbing now, in gentle little huffs that denoted deep grief but she was too exhausted to express it any other way. If it wouldn’t have been clumsy I might have comforted her. Instead I sat in the wing-backed chair with my hands in my lap.
“Have you heard of other men doing this to human girls like yourself?”
“Yes.” She said.
“Do you know his name?”
“Yes.” She said.
“And where he lives?” I asked, but she didn’t answer freely like the other questions, “you don’t want to tell me?”
“He’s a great Fae male, he’d find a way to punish me.”
I sighed. She wasn’t afraid for nothing, Fae males were intimidating even to Fae females. They were notoriously sensitive to disrespect and were incredibly territorial. Some of them were ambitious on top of all that and if their positions were compromised there was very little they’d stop at to protect them.
“I don’t blame you child. We will do nothing, but I will keep you safe from him.”
She sobbed again. “Thank you my lady.”
“You are welcome to stay here as long as you want. You are also free to leave whenever you want. If you are afraid to leave the house or city, I will have Audrei’s husband escort you. He is a quiet and gentle man that I trust, and you can trust him too.”
“Thank you, but I can’t stay here for nothing, surely.”
“If you wish to help around the house you may, but its not a requirement of our hospitality. I only ask that you go to Audrei for assignment, she is a Keeper and they have a certain way of doing things.”
“May I ask you a question my lady?”
“Of course.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because my kind owe your kind a great debt.”
“How do you figure that?”
“We may not subject you to slavery, or exile you completely, but we haven’t done much to care for you and serve you have we?”
“No…”
“Tell me, girl, do humans believe in a god?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about him, does he have rules?”
“Yes he does.”
“What are they? Or are they too complicated to share in one conversation?”
“No they are pretty simple. Acknowledge him and no other gods, cling to his Word and live it every day, serve each other with the love he has for us, and share his good news with all.”
“What is his good news?” I asked. I had never heard of another god, beside the god Fae believed in. But then, I had never thought to ask either. When I started Scripting my other studies were dropped. Nobody asked anything of me as long as my nose was in a notebook or pile of Vellum. It wasn’t lost on me how this human god’s rules were quite similar to the spirit of our own Fae guidelines.
“One day he will return and when he does he will bring justice and liberty and abundance to share with all that love him.”
“That is good news indeed.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“You have given me a lot to think about, Wihenna. I am going back to my study, please tell Audrei I won’t be at dinner tonight.”
“Yes, my lady.”
My grandfather’s cherry trees were in full blossom and the warm evening breeze carried the sweetness into my study. I sat back from the stack of Vellum and sighed. It was the hardest Script I’d ever written.
There were days when I came to it with apathy, tired and too overwhelmed with the idea that the pages resisted the Script I spoke over them. At other times my hands, pressed to the Vellum as I spoke in excited rushes and breathless pauses, would get hot with the magic pouring from my soul onto each page.
Whether the days were fruitful or not, the work still took a long nine months. Tonight I had reached the last page and poured my last line of Script onto its surface. It always amazed me when the Script ended and I had purchased the exact amount of Vellum needed for it. I think it was because I had always allowed the Vellum to choose me, instead of me choosing it.
I pressed my fingers to the back of neck. Into the nape where all my tension sat. My hair fell in silk strands around my fingers, and I dug past them to knead out the knots in the muscle. My sensitive finger pads skipped over dimples in my skin and my heart skipped a beat. It was the same reaction every time I stumbled over one of the scars he left.
If he hadn’t left those scars—if he hadn’t happened to me at all, would I have allowed my compassion to move me to help Wihenna?
A baby cried and startled me. I sat up straight in my chair and listened. I heard Audrei’s laughter float up the stairwell and under the crack in my door. There were excited shouts from her husband. Then Wihenna’s laughter joined in, but much more subdued, it sounded tired. I was shocked she could find joy in this birth at all.
The baby that grew inside of her for the last nine months hadn’t been her choice. Yet she’d still glowed with the secret of motherhood growing in her womb. She’d happily sat and stitched baby clothes and whispered with Audrei, like two young girls, over baby names and guesses at whether it was a girl or boy.
“Well, whatever baby is, I hope it has my eyes.” She had said within my hearing at one point. It was the first time in a long time I had stopped and wondered what eyes looked like, and for the first time I wondered what Wihenna looked like.
I hoped the baby had her same peacefulness. Despite what happened to her she found a place with us and seemed content with it.
I wasn’t content and this was my house. Or was it? Perhaps this was a house lent to me by my grandparents so I could leave it for the rightful owners. My fingers shifted and traced the lock on my desk drawer. Everything was in there, I’d spent the last month working on it with the Reckoner.
I wasn’t able to leave anything to Wihenna, there were no allowances in Fae law for human heirs, but I had been able to name Audrei and her husband as my heirs. Everything would go to them in the case that something happened to me. Audrei confided in me that Wihenna asked her to be the baby’s mother, on the chance that it looked more Fae than human, so that it could have a good life.
Reaching over I picked up a pencil and I pulled a scrap of paper out of its protective box, a box designed to protect its contents from the effects of my Scripting. I wrote as carefully as I could on the paper, Audrei would find it and be able to read it. I often left her notes and she was used to interpreting the crooked and sometimes overlapping letters.
She said she collected them, kept them as little bits of art that nobody would understand but her. She cherished them because they were symbols for her of the life I’d chosen to share with her and her husband.
All I wrote on the note was for Wihenna. I set the note on top of the stack of Vellum I just finished Scripting. Then I stood up, picked it all up, and started the walk down the stairs and to the garden at the back of the house.
“My lady,” said Audrei, her voice bubbling with joy.
“Yes Audrei?” I paused in my walk.
“Wihenna’s baby is born, it’s a boy.”
“What a blessing.” I said, and meant it, “did she choose a name already?” It would be nice to know his name before I was gone.
“Yes, she named him Eoghann.”
“What a perfect name for a perfect little lamb.”
“You must come and hold him.”
“I must go out to the garden first, to finish this Script.”
“Yes my lady, but then come and see Wihenna, she was asking after you.”
“If I can tonight I will.”
It wasn’t a lie, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to. I turned and continued my walk to the back door. Letting myself out I felt my way down the back steps carefully and followed the paving stones through the yard to a spot under the cherry tree. My grandfather had covered the ground under his prized cherry trees with fine pea gravel.
I knelt on the gravel, it bit into my knees and shins and ankles.
I set the stack of Vellum on the ground in front of me.
Then I took the note I had written and anchored it with a small handful of gravel.
I chewed on my lip, had I left enough of a note? Or should I have told Audrei more? So she would know how dear of a friend she’d become? She would know though, wouldn’t she?
It did seem poetic though, the noted suggested that what became of me tonight was for Wihenna, and what became of this last Script too. I turned so I could ear the sound of the baby crying again, it carried through the garden. Not loud wails but definitely the protests of a creature new to this world. Tonight was for him too.
You see, what I haven’t disclosed yet is this: Fae Scripters are not held accountable to the rules of their craft only by other Fae. We are held to those rules by our god himself. It is written in our souls. So, if we do not follow them, we might succeed in disobeying, but we will not survive it.
I knew no Enactor, however, that would bring to life the Script I’d written. There was no way I could take it to a Reckoner for auction, because the first set of eyes that saw it would report me for treason. For inciting a revolution.
Settling deeper into my kneeling position I lean forward and press my hands against the Script.
Scents of open fields and fertile orchards. Perfumes of hope and opportunity and good will. A bouquet of dreams that could finally be dreamt without crushing disappointment. All those things and more were in this Script. Once Enacted it would put humans on a level playing field with Fae. It would gift them with the chance to Script their own stories and Enact their own Scripts.
I didn’t need to see the Script to Enact it. It was still fresh in my mind. This was the only time I would have the chance to do this. Once Scripts had left my hands after completing the last page, I forgot them and lost the feel for them. It was now or never.
With a deep breath I turned my focus inward to find the part of my soul that held the Enactor inclinations left by the influence of my parents and siblings. I pressed my lips together and hummed, I wasn’t sure why but recalled hearing my sisters do the same thing when they practiced their Enactments.
Then I weaved the thread of Enactment through the feel of the Script under my hands. Every intricacy was still in my mind. Every word I spoke, every breath I took, every page I turned, every inflection and tone my voice committed.
I felt the pages under my hands get hot. Then I felt them start to change in texture and shape. The Vellum curled in on itself, folding inward, inward, inward. It got so hot my hum morphed into an expression of pain.
Finally, when I thought I could bear it no more the Vellum stopped folding in, but then it began shrinking, getting harder and harder and more compact. Until it was a dense and heavy object in my hands. I could hold it in one hand, though it was almost twice as long as the width of my palm.
It was hard, and cool, and narrow. A cylindrical shape. I felt along its length with my fingers and found one end was tapered, and sharp. It felt like it had two teeth and I gasped, because there was liquid and I thought the object bit me until I bled. But it hadn’t, there was no cut on my fingers, but rather the object leaked fluid when I pressed the tip to anything.
I knew not what it was, only that it would change the world.
During the Enactment the Vellum had gotten so hot it was burning my hands, and I had prayed in the back of my mind for relief. The completing of the Enactment didn’t bring relief though. Instead, the heat remained, just under my skin.
The skin on my cheeks grew tight and I felt layers peeling away. I knew what this was. This was my judgment. This was the retribution for stepping outside my calling and taking on the calling of another.
But this was my sacrifice. Not only for the humans, that Fae might share prosperity with them, because they should be included in the ALL. But this was also for Fae, that they might hear and know the good news shared freely by the humans.
I clenched my teeth together, but they crumbled in my mouth. I would have choked on them, but I had stopped breathing. My lungs turned to molten retribution within me. Heat gathered at my eyes and for the first time in my life there was something other than black, there was a glow, dark and pulsing, then it lightened until it was a blazing inferno.
I felt the crumbling of my body into ash start at my fingers and toes and travel up my arms and legs. It was why I chose to do this out here, in the garden, on the gravel. To save the clean up required by Audrei. I hadn’t known exactly how it would happen, only that it would.
Now, as I felt myself disintegrating, I smelt it. I thought the scent would bring to mind regret, but it didn’t. I thought it would because of the bitterness I tasted those long months before when I touched the Vellum to my tongue.
There was no regret though. Only hope. Only stern resolve for their sakes. They knew not what was missing, they were too blind to see it. There was a freedom and a prosperity beyond their comprehension though, I had to believe that. Or this was all for nothing.
I inhaled one last time, I didn’t know how as my body burned up from within, but the last breath dissolved me completely and I was no more than a puff of ash in the evening breeze. The last thing I tasted was bitter, like you expected death and ashes to be—but the last thing I smelt was the fragrance of sedition.
And oh, it was sweet.
THE END
