Page 63 of Strange Grace
“How do you know?” asks Aderyn Grace.
“It’s the only way. There must be a heart!”
Murmurs of uncertainty and disbelief scatter throughout the villagers. They’ve all turned to shadow as the sun vanishes, leaving only the pale glow of the creamy horizon.
“Aren’t you the devil? Tricking us?” asks a young girl. Brave, though her chin lifts defiantly and her hands are clenched against fearful trembling. The small tawny girl who screamed at him from the square.
Baeddan shudders and crouches, hunkering down like the monster he looks. He gouges his chest with sharp nails and nods. “I am the devil, pretty girl, yes. Yes.”
The girl keeps her brave face, and a boy as tan as she but taller and older, asks, “But sometimes the runner lives.”
Other voices take up the protest.
“Some live!”
“John!”
“Col Sayer! Griffin!”
“Tom Ellis!”
“Marc Argall!”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” Baeddan cries. “But someone dies. The saint dies, because the saint runs in anointed for the tree! It is how I knew John Upjohn and—and Rhun Sayer. They were already bound to the Bone Tree when they ran into the forest.” Baeddan covers his eyes, then his ears, as the villagers ask a dozen questions. Rhun Sayer joins him, kneeling at his side. Rhun’s shoulder touches his, and Baeddan grinds his fists into his ears.
•••
MAIRWEN IS ENERGIZED AND WILD,eyes too wide, unable to breathe through her nose, but only suck in air like she’s tasting it all, needing the flavor of everything. The forest whispers her name again and again. She feels it like a thread of lightning from the thorns growing over her heart, down into her viscera.
She asks her mother to explain the charm to everyone: death, life, Grace witches in between; explain the blessing shirt and anointing. Aderyn does so, and it is little surprise to most folks, who’ve seen the Grace witches charm the square and sing blessings for their entire lives. The anointing oil is made from herbs collected from the edge of the forest, the fat and bones of the previous Slaughter Moon’s horse sacrifice, and a drop of Grace witch blood. That is how she was taught by her mother, who was taught by her own mother, and back and back until the bloodline sprang from the elder two Grace witches.
“What else did your mother teach you, that isn’t in the story?” Mair asks.
Her mother studies her, a familiar impatience on her face. “That the devil is a god, the old god of the forest, as you said, and that the saint goes in to keep the heart of the bargain strong. That all of us, our bloodline, are called into the forest finally, when it is our time to stay there. And... that a Grace witch can undo it all.”
“I’ve always heard the call,” Mairwen tells everyone. “Since I was a child. Because my father was already part of the forest. His heart.”
“You risked undoing it all by going in,” Aderyn says.
“If I hadn’t, Rhun would be dead.”
Nobody is willing to argue with that. Not yet.
But the town does argue over Baeddan’s insistence that all the saints have died, even those who ran back out. They left the valley because their memories were too terrible, because they longed for further adventure, and would never, ever return without telling their families! Some say perhaps others died, strangers. Or it’s the hearts of the Grace witches from the past two hundred years binding the charm in between saints. Or Baeddan is simply wrong—look at him, how broken he is. None agree. Lord Vaughn says he’ll look through his family’s books for information, but he doesn’t know if it will help.
Without the old god to ask, Mairwen wonders if there’s any way to know. Except to walk back inside. To remember. Her stomach churns as she listens to the voice of the forest in her mind and heart.
Mairwen Grace. Mairwen. Daughter of the forest.
The townsfolk ask her the same questions again and again, and she answers, again and again, though the answers never change. She doesn’t remember enough for more.
She’s starving, and as bread and meat are brought out, as rosemary potatoes fill the air with savory smells, Mair stands apart, breathing hard, not quite able to be a piece of the whole. Of all people, it’s Arthur who takes Baeddan to the trough of meat and aids him in selecting a piece to devour. Arthur remains all sharp edges but seems less interested in stabbing people indiscriminately. Mairwen can’t help but like it. Rhun stays beside her, solid and silent, unsmiling. She touches her shoulder to his. She shivers, but isn’t cold.
“Hungry?” Rhun asks. Mair nods. He goes and brings back food and two knives with which they stab and eat potatoes and roast from the same bowl, shoulders together. Hot food in her belly, Mair feels less ephemeral.
Arthur and Baeddan sit together, devouring twice as much as Mairwen and Rhun, and Mair notices children are creeping nearer and nearer, especially the Sayer cousins. Baeddan eats with his hands, but carefully, eyeing the small boys and girls, occasionally showing them his teeth, even with meat in them. Arthur winces once or twice, and snaps something at the children. Baeddan snatches a hunk of bread from a little Crewe girl, who stares wide-eyed, then frowns at him and demands it be returned with a tiny, insistent white hand.
More Sayers cluster around as Baeddan and the girl negotiate, including his mother, Alis, who slides a hand through his dark hair. She jerks back, cupping her hand protectively, and Baeddan’s father, Evan, inspects it. Baeddan himself hunches over, covers his ears, and again it’s Arthur soothing him.
