Anne Bishop - Shadows and Light

“Day and night,” Ashk said softly. “Shadows and light. Life and death. They’re all part of the turning of the days, Morag. All pieces of the world. Life can choke out life. Weeds can leave no room for other plants to grow. Some harvesting must be done.”

“Are we talking about small green plants, Ashk?” Morag asked. The understanding in Ashk’s woodland eyes was as compelling as it was disturbing.

“We’re talking about life,” Ashk replied. She looked up, her gaze focused on the woods that bordered the meadow where Ari and Neall’s cottage stood. “This is the growing season. This is the time when the Lord of the Woods is called the Green Lord, the time when life is bursting into the world. But no one forgets that when the Green Lord walks, you can see the shadow of the Hunter, which is his other name.”

Morag rested her hands on her thighs. “My sister pointed out that there are no forests in Tir Alainn. I told her it was because life and death walk hand in hand there, that it was because forests have shadows and they’re too alive to be perfect.”

Ashk’s gaze returned to Morag. “Then you do understand. Pluck the weeds while they can still be plucked. The grass has its own place to grow. Let it grow there. But keep it out of the garden where it doesn’t belong.”

As they watched each other, a tension grew between them. Then a happy bark made Ashk turn, and the moment was broken.

“Ah,” Ashk said. “Here comes the person who can tell you what is weed and what is not.”

Getting to her feet, Morag saw Ari walking toward them while Merle ran exuberant circles around her. The big animal, half shadow hound, was still young enough to be puppyish in his behavior and had been acting even more so since being reunited with Ari.

When Ari reached one of the gates that opened into the big kitchen garden, she rested a hand on Merle’s head. “Go run and play in the meadow,” she said. “I’ll be right here with Morag and Ashk.”

Merle just looked at her and whined.

“It’s all right,” Ari said. She leaned toward him. “Go chase a bunny.”

With another happy bark, Merle turned and raced across the meadow, a black-streaked, gray shape. Only the tan forelegs gave away the fact that he wasn’t pure shadow hound.

Looking at the two women, Ari smiled ruefully. “When I closed him out of the bathing room last night, he sat at the door and howled.”

“We heard him,” Ashk said dryly. She laughed when Ari’s eyes widened.

“You may not have really heard him,” Morag grumbled, “but Neall and I certainly did.” And no command or scold could move the animal away from the bathing room door. She had taken the puppy when she left Ahern’s farm last summer, but Merle had never forgotten Ari, the first person who had loved him without reservation.

“Give him time,” Ashk said. “He’s been with you only a few days. He doesn’t trust yet that a closed door doesn’t mean you’ll go away.”

“I know,” Ari said, opening the garden gate. “At least Neall has convinced him that he can’t sleep in the bed with us.”

Ashk smiled. “The next step will be convincing him that he can’t always spend the night in your bedroom.”

Ari blushed. Then she frowned at the empty basket at Morag’s feet. “I came out to help you weed.”

“You’re supposed to be resting,” Morag said as Ari sank to her knees, braced one hand on the ground in order to lean over, and neatly plucked the shoot of grass out of the soil.

“I rested,” Ari said, sounding a bit defensive. She tossed the grass into the basket and busily continued to weed that patch of the garden.

Life can choke out life, Morag thought as she sank to her knees beside Ari and reached to pluck a small plant from the soil.

Ari grabbed Morag’s hand. “That’s a bean plant.” She pointed to a sprout right beside it. “That’s a weed.”

“How can you tell?” Morag muttered. “They look the same.”

“No, they don’t. Their leaves look different.”

Maybe those leaves looked different to Ari, since witches were the Daughters of the Great Mother and drew their power from Her four branches—earth, air, water, and fire— but to Morag, they were all just sprouts of green that made the ground look soft and fuzzy.

“Besides,” Ari said, “I want to do the work now, before I get so fat with the babe I can’t get up off the ground by myself.” She sighed. “Our first harvest here, and I won’t be able to do more than waddle around while others do the work.”

“It was quite thoughtless of Neall to have his way with you after the Winter Solstice feast and not take into account you might be waddling by the harvest season,” Ashk said dryly.

Morag looked up at Ashk. There was something sharp behind the words that were teasingly said.

Ari didn’t seem to notice. She blushed fiercely, then laughed. “All right. We enjoyed each other, and neither of us was interested in counting on our fingers that night to see when a babe might come.”

Wanting to turn the conversation to something else, Morag said, “You planted a lot of beans. You must like them.”

Ari wrinkled her nose. “I like peas better, but Neall likes beans. I want to be sure enough plants grow so that he can eat all the beans he wants fresh and still give me enough to can so that he’ll have some over the turning of the seasons.”

Glancing at Ashk, Morag was surprised to see pleasure and pain in equal measure on the other woman’s face.

“Are you feeling well?” Ashk asked quietly. “Neall mentioned that you’ve nodded off a few times almost before you’ve finished eating the evening meal. You shouldn’t be that tired after sleeping during the day.”

“I—” Ari looked around, as if checking to make sure it was still just the three of them. “I don’t really sleep during the day.”

“Oh?”

“When Neall and I went to Breton last month, I traded some of the weavings I’d done over the winter for fabric to make clothes for the babe, and something for me to wear while the babe’s still growing in me. And I got a fine piece of linen to make Neall a shirt for the Summer Solstice. I hid the linen among the rest of the fabric because he would have dug in his heels about me getting something for him that cost so dear.” Ari hesitated, took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “All those years when Neall lived with Baron Felston, he never had anything new, anything fine. All his clothes were Royce’s cast-offs. But this is Neall’s home; this is his mother’s land. He’s gentry here, and a Lord in his own right. So I want him to have something new and fine. And I want it to be a surprise, so I can work on it only when I’m supposed to be resting because that’s the only time when Neall takes care of chores that aren’t close to the cottage and I can be sure he won’t walk in before I can hide the shirt.”

What’s going on in your head and heart, Ashk? Morag wondered as that mixture of pain and pleasure filled Ashk’s face again before the woman looked away.

“Fair warning,” Ashk murmured. “The young Lord approaches.”

Ari started weeding vigorously.

Morag rose to her feet, feeling oddly protective but uncertain why that was so.

Neall strode toward the kitchen garden. He frowned when he reached the wall and saw Ari.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” he said.

Ari looked over her shoulder. “I rested. Now I’m teaching Morag how to weed the garden.”

“I already told her how to do that.”

“And now I’m showing her how to do it.”

Before Neall could say anything more, Ashk said briskly, “Come, young Lord. While Morag has her lesson, it’s time for yours.”