The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Disclaimer: Not mine.

The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Chapter 3

Helga

Helga was too busy this morning to go to the market with her mother to shop for the day's food. She had awoken early to gather the wild wheat that grew in the meadow above their valley. She needed to ready for her trip and to prepare much of the food her family would need while she was away. She would make the flatbread and grind enough gain for several days. Her mother had eleven young men and boys to care for, and would have no help when she was gone.

Helga had studied hard for her test. She would sit up late at night in front of the fire until the glowing embers failed to give enough light to study the runes. She would sit in the clearing by the village and stare up at the sky, naming all the constellations and worrying that she may not get all of them right. Closing her eyes, she would chant the history of her tribe and the tribes that had joined their last blood with hers and were no more.

Her clan had only one teacher, like the Raven clan, but Elbragh was still young and had time to send many for their test. Helga's teacher was already in her eighties. Helga knew she had a lot resting on her shoulders and she worried her lip until it bled. Only she and two others would be going this time to the circle. If they did not pass her clan would soon be without a teacher. A clan without a teacher would soon be swallowed up by the others, losing their identity and becoming forgotten except in the story of another. It was also an unsafe journey and her people would not be going with her.

"Helga?" Her mother's voice brought her out of her thoughts. "You are dreaming again."

"I have filled the larder with nuts and put berries to dry, but I am afraid it will not be enough." She looked up from her place in front of the fire where she was making bread. "I will be gone more then a week."

"There is plenty enough here for the whole moon." Her mother laughed. "It is you going on the journey, not us."

"The weather may change, it is best to gather what you can now." Helga looked away, unable to say more.

"I spoke to Sonje." Liesel would not meet her daughter's eyes and busied herself flattening the dough and placing it on the hot stones in the fire.

"Why would you seek her out?" Helga stopped working and sat back on her heels to watch her mother.

"I dreamed you would not return," she said softly. "Seven times now I have seen you gone. Seven times I have missed you."

"Liesel." Helga shook her head and reached back to take another ball of dough to flatten. "You know dreams can have many meanings."

"Yes child," Liesel sighed. "Do you think I am so old I have forgotten? Why do you think I went to see Sonje?"

"You went to see her so you could peek at her new daughter-in-law." Helga laughed. "Don't tell me you didn't."

Liesel reddened. "Well, she was there."

"And?" Helga giggled.

"You are prettier. I told her that too." Liesel lifted her chin. "I told her that my daughter would have been a better choice. I told her you were a better cook and that you were obedient."

"You told her I was obedient?" Helga could not help but giving a deep laugh.

"Well, I did say most of the time." Liesel frowned.

"Does it matter that I do not even like Tatjana?" Helga snorted, putting the last of the flatbreads on the stones.

"You could have learned to." Her mother looked at her oddly. "Love often comes after the binding. Choose someone who you like, someone you can live with, and worry about love later."

"No, I will wait until it comes to me." She laughed at her mother's scowl. "Love will come and he will be tall, and have blond hair, like the Romans, and have blue eyes."

"Ah, will he be rich as well?" Liesel laughed with her daughter.

"Oh yes, terribly rich. We will eat on gold plates and wear fine clothes." She sighed and smiled at the game they often played. "I will wear jewels and fine robes and have two pairs of shoes."

"Yes, I remember," her mother said. "And you will have so many children that he will bring you servants and build you a grand castle."

"Yes, and I shall not settle for less than the finest in the land." Helga got up from her knees and pulled her mother up by the hands. "And we shall have plenty of rooms for you to come and visit and spoil your grandchildren."

"Oh, Helga," Liesel said suddenly serious. "I fear I shall not see you again."

"Nonsense." Helga hugged her. "What did she say?"

"She said you would do great things and that your name would live on apart from ours." Liesel turned away from Helga, afraid she would cry. "She said you would not live here any longer, but that you must do this."

Helga walked up behind her mother and put her hand on her shoulder. "What else did she say?"

"She said that our way here is ending. That soon we would leave this valley and go north."

"Did she say I would also go north?" Helga whispered. "Shall I meet you there?"

"You are to go to a place that is hidden." Liesel turned back and forced a smile. "She said we would all be safe, that the boys would be safe as well."

"There you have it." Helga turned back to the table and began cleaning the flour off the surface. "Everything will be fine. For that you should not have paid good money."

"It was not much." Liesel stiffened. "Don't tell your..."

"Have I ever?" Helga smiled. "Next time you pay me. I will tell you everything will be wonderful. That way he will not be mad at you for wasting money."

"You need to eat a big lunch today, and for dinner I will make your favourites." He mother looked at her with her eyes filling with tears.

"Tonight I am staying with the others at the teacher's dwelling." Helga turned away to hide her face from her mother's. "We will be leaving before the sun comes up."

"Do you have everything that you need?"

"I only need what I have on," Helga said lightly.

"Helga, if we had more, if I could give you something for you leave-taking..."

"It would be one more thing to carry," she chided Liesel. "I have no need of anything. You have given me everything I need."

"You want so much Helga, so much you want." He mother sat down at the table and looked at her sadly.

"Mother, I am surprised at you." Helga kneeled in front of her mother and laid her head in her lap. "You are the one that said 'never be satisfied, always strive for more'. This is what I strive for."

"What do I know?" Liesel smiled and stroked Helga's hair. "I am an old woman."

"I want to leave before Father and the boys come home." Helga looked up at Liesel. "I can't say goodbye."

"They will not like that." Liesel looked at the door, trying to judge the time of day by the shadows that spilled in.

"I will fix them a feast. They won't care if their bellies are full." Helga got up to return to the fire and busied herself with her daily tasks, finding peace in the repetition. She closed her eyes, said goodbye to the household gods, and asked them to watch over the family and to travel with them when the time came, as she knew it would.

Helga kept an eye on the shadows, making sure to leave well before the men were due home. She waited until her mother had gone to the well in the middle of the village and, hurrying to grab her cloak, she ran to the back entrance of the dwelling. She stopped by the bowl of herbs and, taking up a handful, she shoved them in her pocket. All she would need was the memory of home, and the smell in her pocket would be enough. Without a backwards glance, she ran out of the village and up the side of the mountain to her teacher's dwelling.

Stopping halfway up the green, steeply-sloped meadow, she turned to look back. The village sat at the bottom of a valley, as if at the bottom of two hands cupped together in prayer. The sides of two great mountains protected the village from the sea's storms and the storms of man. White smoke curled from the small holes left open in the thatched roofs, and even at this distance, Helga could hear the sound of children calling to one another in their games.

She had known since her first dream that she would leave on this day and not return. The men with the swords and horses would come. They would set fire to the homes and erase their memory from the land. Her people would go north; she knew this as she knew she needed to breathe. She knew she would never see her people again.

She turned to her path and continued on, picking her way across the disappearing path until she came to the teacher's dwelling.

"Ah, Helga," Gurth said as she stepped aside to let Helga enter the home. "You are the first. I did not expect you until morning."

"I had to come tonight, to help you ready." Helga greeted her teacher with a kiss on her right palm before tossing the herbs in the fire. "I came early."

"I thought you may." Gurth looked at her oddly. "You left before your family could see you take your leave?"

"Yes," Helga said softly.

"Then you must also have the dream." Gurth led Helga to the rough wooden table that stood in the middle of the long earthen and thatch dwelling. "Here, we will cast the mirrors and see if we can discern the meaning together."

"I have no need to cast." Helga said evenly. "I have known my lot for a long time now, which is the reason I came early."

"Yet you have said nothing." Gurth raised her eyebrow. "Why do you wait until now to tell me these things?"

"You will not be here at the end. You will not have time to prepare," Helga said evenly. "I have come to help you pack what is important to you."

"My dreams only ..."

"No, I know this as surely as I know my name." Helga frowned. "You who have taught me now questions what I know?"

Gurth looked at the witch in front of her, and then looked around her home. She tried to put things in order of importance in her mind.

"We can make a cache. We can bury things to come back for." Helga looked around at several lifetimes of stored knowledge in parchments, engravings and magical items. To lose these would be to lose something precious to not only her clan, but also all the clans that lived in this land.

"Have you seen this also?" Gurth was already rising to gather the items together.

"Yes, I have seen you in your new home surrounded by your teachings, with new students in a great place." Helga smiled. "Let's get busy, then. When the others come we will tell them you are only hiding things due to your absence."

For the next several hours, they worked in silence. Gurth magically dug four pits on the four sides of her dwelling, each marked by an unchangeable element. A great boulder marked the goods hidden in the east; a crag of rock marked the south's treasure, the west was marked by an outcropping of land, while the north's bounty lay in a straight line from the valley's head.

When they had finished, Gurth pressed a small golden cup into her hands. "You may have need of this. It is said to fill with what is needed."

"I could use a cold cup of mead." Helga laughed and peered into the still-empty cup. "I suppose my need is not great enough?"

"It has never filled for me." Gurth shrugged her shoulders. "It is old. It is said that in times of great upheaval it has saved many lives."

"I will honour it." Helga said seriously. "I will carry your memory in it. That way it shall always hold what I need."

Gurth looked as her sadly. "You will not be with us in the new place?"

"No, I have a different path. I can not see myself clearly, but I shan't be with the others."

Gurth walked into her home to sleep for the last time under the roof her father's father had started

The next morning came too quickly. Three other clansmen joined them. Two were students and one the brother of the elder, sent along for protection. Helga scowled at the thought of him intruding on their trip but quickly dismissed it. No other from the clan would be going to Oidhche Shamhna this year.

The elders now deemed it unsafe, and too near the cities of stone. They decided only to allow three students, the teacher and one other to go. If the test were not this year, they would have sent no one, and risked the scandals that would spread.

Their village would take smoked meats and salted fish for the feast. They would offer to the gods and would carry the bones of two that would lay in the mounds. No one said aloud, no one whispered to the gods, that this would be the last burial with their people. No one knew where the newly dead would lay.

Helga stole one last glance over her shoulder as she reached the summit of the hill. Once she started down the opposite side of the mountain, she would never again see her home. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she turned and started on the path to the test.

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