Anne Kelleher - Silver's Lure

In the cauldron, the image swirled away as swiftly as it had risen. The Hag lifted her head, squinting across the rocky shore into the green glow that rose off the phosphorescent water, then licked her lips as the tips of Herne’s horns broke the surface at last. Water gushed off his broad forehead, cascaded through his black curls like a curtain as his enormous head and shoulders pushed up and out of the sea, revealing the chest and upper arms of a man atop the body of a bull. He strode slowly up the sloping lip, onto the jagged surface of the shore, the razor-sharp edges of the rocks smoothing themselves under his hooves as he approached. His wet tail flicked from side to side, his eyes gleamed red.

His arms were empty.

The Hag withdrew her stick and scurried to the other side of her cauldron. “Where’s the changeling? Where’ve you got it? My cauldron’s hungry and wants its head.”

Herne folded his arms and wouldn’t meet her eyes.

The Hag hissed. “What is it, Father? Where’s the changeling? The cauldron’s cold and must be fed.”

“It’ll have to wait a bit.”

She tried to catch his eye, but again, he wouldn’t look at her. Something dark and ugly uncoiled in her gut, and the Hag took another step closer. “What have you done now, Father?”

“You didn’t see him,” Herne whispered. “You didn’t see him as he was born.”

The end of her stick flared red and in disbelief, she watched tears trickle down his face. “Him? That thing is not a him—it’s not a child meant to live—it’s a changeling for the pot.”

“That pot’s all you ever care about,” Herne thundered. The ground shook, a rock tumbled down and splashed into the sea. In the depths, leviathan shapes shuddered and spun.

The Hag curled both hands tightly around her staff and stood her ground. “That’s what I’m supposed to care about—I’m the one who keeps it all turning. You knew what had to be done even before it was born—we both did. Now go and get it, and bring it here. You know what must be done.”

“It can wait.”

An emotion so foreign the Hag didn’t initially recognize it traced a cold finger down her spine, and she peered up at Herne. The only moment she could compare it to was the moment the pink crystal globe had shattered. It was a moment that was irretrievably different from the moment before it, one that separated time into now and then, before and after. “Wait?” she rasped. Pain lanced through her chest and a sea began to boil deep inside her lungs. “What did you do to the changeling?”

“The sidhe-king took him.”

“What?” A fit of coughing overtook her, and she felt a gush of rheumy mucous rise up from somewhere deep inside. She hawked and spat. The gob was flecked with streaks of blood. Now the fire’s nice and hot, now’s the time to stir the pot. The words danced through her mind and she stared up at Herne, wondering if he realized that the fire now burning in her lungs was his fault. “You let it happen, didn’t you—you gave it to the sidhe-king, didn’t you? Why? Why would you do such a foolish, careless thing? It’s not a child—it’s a changeling. It’s not meant to grow up—it’s meant to go in my stew.”

“He was so beautiful, Mother,” whispered Herne. “You were gone, the moment I pulled him from you. You didn’t see…You couldn’t see…how different he was…from all the others…all the other changelings…” His voice trailed off, he closed his eyes and shook his head. Then he looked down at his open hands, gazing with something like wonder on his face. “I never saw such a perfect child—his arms and legs so round, so pink. He was like a rose dipped in milk, and his eyes were green, then gray and his head was covered in curls soft as spider silk and black as—” He broke off and turned away, his hands clenching into fists.

“Black as the shit you’ve landed us in,” the Hag screeched. “Blacker than any midnight you’ve yet to see—have you forgotten Lyonesse?”

“He’ll come down to your cauldron sooner or later—everything does.” Herne reared back, narrowed eyes flaring red. His chest appeared to broaden and deepen, his head widened so that more than ever he resembled an enormous bull towering over the tiny woman.

The Hag didn’t flinch. Another burst of coughing overtook her and this time the phlegm landed next to Herne’s foremost hoof. “And how long do you expect me to wait, Father? What will feed my cauldron? What will keep it turning, while this beautiful changeling of yours slithers through the land?”

“I’ll bring him myself if he causes trouble.”

“He’s already caused trouble—I saw it in my cauldron. I didn’t understand what I was seeing, but I do now. All Faerie’s in uproar—Father, what do you think you’ve started?”

“I was going to say his hair was black as yours was, Mother.” Herne dropped his shoulders and turned away, head bent. “Perhaps I should’ve brought him here, let you see. You’d understand.”

“Of course you should’ve brought it here. It doesn’t belong in the World. It belongs in the cauldron. That’s the way it goes—take the changeling, toss it in, stir it hard, watch it spin.”

“I couldn’t let you do that.”

“Bring it here at once.”

Herne shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“You have to do that.”

“It’s already too late—they gave him a name.”

A name. The first anchor of awareness into one’s own flesh for every being—no matter what sort of being it was—began with a name. A changeling never had a name. It wasn’t supposed to live long enough to need one. The disruption she’d glimpsed in the cauldron was a greater rift than she’d realized. “You have to fix this, Father.”

“Why can’t you just agree to wait a bit? You know he’ll end up here eventually like everything else.”

The weight of all existence fell upon her like an enormous rock, and for a moment she wondered if she would ever breathe again. Automatically, because it was the only thing she knew to do, the Hag tottered to the cauldron. She dipped her stick into the brew, and the cauldron rolled gently, settling into place onto the three globes. Tentatively, feeling as if the ground beneath her feet might open and swallow them all, she began to stir in a widening figure eight as she frowned into the broth. “This isn’t something easily undone, Father. This one’s got away from us—gotten itself a name, even. Oh, this is a clever one, indeed. Cauldron only knows what havoc this one will wreak.”

The weight was like a black cloak, settling over her as dense as the soupy water lapping against the rocks. It choked her throat, made the words hard to form and turned her voice into a guttural growl. “Round about the circle goes, dark to light and back it flows, now the fire starts to burn, and the brew begins to churn. Gently simmer in the pot, while the changeling-child rots—take it, break it, let it burn, that Hag to Maiden then return.” But even as she chanted, even as she bent her back and pulled the stick through the frantically bubbling brew, she knew it was already too late.

White Birch Druid Grove, Garda Vale

The trixies were restless and the butter wouldn’t churn. Meeve’s messenger, one of her elite corps of warriors called the Fiachna, and sorely afflicted with arrogance, had come and gone and Catrione had been glad to see him go. Since dawn, rain had been sluicing off the thatched roofs like water from an overturned bucket, and while at one time, the thought of his wet, uncomfortable journey might’ve quietly pleased her, this was the first quarter Catrione had ever served as Ard-Cailleach, the head sister of the Grove, and she was too caught up in the turmoil spiraling all around her to give him another thought.