Witch Clan: Matriarchs, John Stormm [great reads txt] 📗

relish.

“I believe that Gregory the Peck, and your pear core are fully acceptable to our new friend,” she announced. "Now, let's hope he can help us in our quest to find Johnny. Time is wasting and we need to make some distance today."

The trail had took a downward turn into a small, sharply cut valley. Emma considered the path that cut across the wetlands at the bottom where pairs of logs, covered in rough planking spanned the small streams of slow moving water and oozing mud to small grassy hillocks to be followed by yet another footbridge across the next creek. Gregory stayed perched on her right shoulder where he could shine his advice to her should she need it. Leona walked single file behind her as the trail got narrower through the boggy lowlands of Annwn.

Far to their right was a wide rock ledge that stretched over two hundred yards at the narrow head of the valley with water falling about a hundred feet to a deep black pool about a half mile from the path they were using. Water spilled over its edge sparingly, but the cut of the valley attested to the fact that this would not be a good place to be caught during a heavy rain. The log bridges and the plant life looked like they had been undisturbed for at least a couple years, but nothing here looked much older than that. Emma wasn't sure of what the duration of wet and dry cycles was in a place like this, but she was aware that this was the dry cycle and had been so for a moderately long time. The constant overcast of the skies added to her anxiety of being in such a spot as she could not tell when they might decide it was time for a cloudburst. Patterns. Wizardry was about watching and recognizing the patterns in nature, her mother would say.

"When are we going to stop, Grandma?" Leona complained. "I'm hungry."

"We'll stop and take a break when we get out of this swamp, dear," she said. "I don't want to spend any more time down here than I have to."

Emma wondered what the medicinal qualities of some of these plants might be. The plants she could recognize, Venus flytraps, jack-in-the-pulpits and pitcher plants the size of garbage cans suggested that what life was here, was robust if nothing else. Carnivorous plants would not grow to such size on mosquitoes and flies alone. All the more reason to move along quickly.

The first sign of trouble came with a plunk in the stream near the bridge they were crossing, followed by another and yet another. It could have been frogs jumping from the banks into the water, but a golf ball sized raindrop soaked her hair in the next instant and Emma's worst fears were realized. A jet black bolt of otherworldly lightning struck a twisted oak at the waterfall's edge, shattering its branches like glass and the rain came in earnest.

"Let's hustle that bustle, little lady," she shouted over the din to her granddaughter. "It's about to get very deep, very fast."

They both broke into a sprint across the rapidly swelling streams of mire and water. Gregory took up a position in the top of Leona's daypack as the torrential downpour severely limited his flying ability. They were still a quarter mile from where the trail would rise and ramp its way up the canyon wall on the far side of the valley. The falls had assumed a more generous flow than before. Even so, they had to pick their way across the broken, swampy terrain. The last footbridge had swayed sickeningly just before the current swept it way. Leona narrowly missed being swept away with it by leaping the rest of the way and Emma snatching her by her pack straps and hauling her ashore. On the far side of the hillock they occupied, a similar bridge over a ten foot wide stream loosened and was threatening to vacate the tree stump it was resting on in midstream. The hillock was too narrow, wet and slick to get a running leap so Emma thought she might put their walking sticks to good use. Both of them had at least six foot lengths of supple oak to work with.

"Have you ever seen something called 'pole vaulting'?" she asked.

"Yes, we tried it in school once, over a small bar,” Leona said, squinting through the rain at the swelling stream. “But I couldn't get very high when I tried it."

"We don't need to go very high," Emma shouted. "We need to hold our sticks tight at the top, stuff them into the center of that stump, and kick both feet up in front to land on the far side of that stream. Can you do that?"

Leona hesitated only a minute before she nodded and Emma set her grip high on her staff, and told her to squeeze hard and kick off fast. Leona's jitters gave her the spring she needed to clear to the far shore, where the water was now about ankle deep. With Gregory hanging onto her collar in a death grip, Emma sprang with a passion and kicked up her heels in a most unladylike fashion to clear the torrent as the rest of the foot bridge washed away. They ran through the cattails and brush to where the trail began to climb.

Once they reached higher ground, it became slower going as the hard packed clay floor and loose rocks, along with the heavy rain made visibility poor and the footing slick and treacherous. The last thing they wanted was to take a tumble off the trail into the raging torrent below. Cautiously they picked their way along the switchback, digging in hard with their walking sticks and shortening their strides up the slippery trail.

Since they were already soaked to the skin, once the trail headed back into the forest, they made use of the downpour to rinse all the mud and debris off their clothes, shoes and skin. It was a warm and humid day to start with so the cool shower didn’t feel all too bad. The forest canopy kept the worst of the rain off them as they hiked the trail at a slower pace, in search of a good resting area. She made certain to mark her trail in the usual manner.

The terrain ran steadily upward and became more broken and rocky as it went westward. At least, it would have been westward back in her own plane of existence. The fungi favoring the northernmost parts of the tree trunks to be out of the sunlight was her only indicator of direction since she had entered the woods. More and more evergreens were making an appearance among the variety of trees now. These and some good sized boulders to back up against would make excellent shelter. The rain was more a steady drizzle now. The two large slabs of sandstone were going to be her best effort at finding shelter before nightfall.

Using the witch blade to cut notches in the higher end of the stones, she placed Leona's staff across the open end like a curtain rod. Then she cut long boughs from the lower branches of the evergreens and cut notches in the thicker end and hooked these over Leona's staff, laying them at a slant for the rain to drip off the branches behind their stone shelter. Leona gathered the loose pine needles to cushion the floor of their shelter and gathered all the dry sticks she could find and piled them just inside. Placing her own staff just behind Leona's, Emma hung their outer clothes across the entrance to their shelter and built a small fire on a flat slab of rock in front of their temporary home. The heat would help dry their clothes and keep most animals away. Some nuts, sweet pears, and two acorn muffins were the fare of the day, topped with a warm bottle of Willard's soda. Gregory shared their meal and a capful of soda with them and sat near the fire all night as piskies, like most fae creatures, don't need much sleep. The ladies, however, slept as deeply and as soundly as they ever had.

“Don’t just lay there, you two,” Ella Mae scolded them gently. “We have to work out some way to get our boy back from the Vough.”

Emma sat bolt upright the instant she heard her mother’s voice. Leona sat up groggily and complained.

“But I was just getting comfortable,” Leona whined. “And I was so tired.”

“It won’t matter anyway, silly girl,” Ella Mae said cheerfully. “You’re still asleep. You’ll be just fine in the morning. That peck of yours would fight a bear to protect you.”

Emma stared at the apparition of her mother, sitting in the pine needles with her knees drawn up, her green eyes twinkling merrily in the firelight that streamed in between their drying clothes.
Gregory tossed another dry stick on the fire and looked over his shoulder at her, nodding once and resumed his vigil.

“Mom, how do I know that this is really you and not some nasty enchantment?” Emma asked as Leona plainly was struggling to gather her wits.

“It’s simple, dear,” Ella replied. “You don’t. Even I’m not sure of everything I’ve seen in this place. I can’t believe I’m seeing all of you here now. Especially when I watched you from the gazing bowl and told you not to come here.” Ella waved a stern finger at her daughter.

It was Emma’s turn to be stunned now. She had discussed none of what she saw that day with anyone. Could something be tapping her memories to befuddle her?

“Great grandma,” Leona broke the momentary silence. “I was at your funeral when I was only five. Are you a ghost?”

“I remember seeing you there, when you came up to say good bye, dear,” Ella Mae said. “But all of us are ghosts, sweetheart. Yours is as trapped in your body as my body is trapped in that box they buried it in, but I don’t live in it anymore. We are, all of us, immortal creatures. We live forever, just not in the same way. We grow.