The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Disclaimer: Not Mine.

The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Chapter 43

Helena's Flight

Helena sat on the floor between Rowena's legs, letting her mother comb her hair. Rowena rotated the combs, letting one soak in the solution of turmeric while she used the other. They talked and laughed until Helena's hair was finished and Rowena bade her to look in the mirror.

"I still do not believe you have allowed a mirror, Mother," Helga said. She jumped up and raced to the table, sitting down and lighting the candles.

She looked in the mirror and smiled, meeting her mother's eyes in the reflection. She turned her head and looked at the image before her, tracing her finger over her eyebrow and lifting her chin to examine her profile.

"Do you think he will like it? Aldred said the woman there colour their hair in the city his uncle lives in."

"How can he not?" Rowena sighed. "You will be the prettiest girl at the ball. I hope I have done the right thing in allowing this. I do not like this Aldred of yours. He is much too old for you and I do not know his family."

"Oh Mother, Erwin would approve that I go. I will be with Salazar and Alya. Erwin will be happy for them, even if he does not admit it. He knows how much they have wanted this baby."

"Just make sure that...."

"I know, I know," Helena laughed. "Be patient, and remember the herbs, and the household gods, and to only leave from the back entrance, and to pray three time for everything, and, and, and."

"I know I should not worry. You are not accustomed to the old ways." Rowena worried her lip as she crossed the room to the chest she kept her treasures in. "Here, this is from the mother of your father. You may wear it only after the ceremony, at the ball, and return it to my chest when you return."

She lifted out the diadem and walked back slowly to Helena, setting it low, letting it encircle Helena's forehead.

"That is how it is meant to be worn, not hidden under a cap, and not sitting on top of the head point up as the foolish girls think. Be proud that you may wear it in public, and be proud that you are from her line." Helena took the diadem from her head and turned to wrap it in a cloth before returning it to her.

"Remember that Slytherin holds much importance to impressions. For Dionysius, to have a royal diadem worn to a Ball in his honour will mean much, to wear it to the naming a slight. Do nothing to take the importance from his naming."

"You told me long ago that it holds your wisdom." Helena looked at her oddly as she reached out her hands and took it from her.

"I wore it for years, until it did not mean what it had," Rowena said sadly. "I hope you never have to learn, as I did, what it had to teach."

Rowena turned away from her and opened the window, throwing it wide to the salty air flowing down from the north. She could not talk of how her heart still ached, of how the knowledge of his Leigh had changed the joy of wearing this to something painful and cruel.

"Yes," she mused. "I have learned a lot from it. I am sure it still has much to teach. Now off with you. Laulen will be here in no time to take you. I do not trust Marcus, twice he has fallen, and Gryffin is at the river with Saul."

"I had hoped Hanson would take me. I feel safer on a broom with him," she said softly. "It has been over a year and still he avoids me."

"As he will, child. He forgives you but his heart still has not. He is afraid to be alone with any of the witches now, for fear of what could be said of him." Rowena studied Helena and was glad to see a blush begin to spread. "In time he may forget. Just let it be for now."

"Karra has taught me the dances. She is so light when she spins so fast. I fell twice the first day. She has little bells she wears and bright colours, Mother, it is so..."

"I know, Helena," Rowena laughed. "I once watched Alya dance at the fires. She looked so happy and free."

"Tell me of when you were young - the balls and celebrations, I mean."

Rowena raised her eyebrow in surprise. Helena sat in front of her, now a year older than she had been when she had entered the circle to be tested. She saw the fires of Oidhche Shamhna as her time of joy. Now, seeing Helena's face, she realized how far her world had gone.

"He is here, I hear him call." Helena jumped and ran to the window, leaned out and waved to Laulen, then turned and ran for the door.

"I will remember everything, and bring back the diadem unharmed," she said from the doorway. "I will be back in only three days. If Erwin comes, tell him I miss him but could not wait."

She turned and ran for the stairs, jumping to the platform before it slid to her, and hurried down to where Laulen waited. Rowena crossed to the window to watch as they left, knowing that Laulen would not resist his chance to fly close to the wall of her tower. Rowena chuckled, knowing it was the fact that Helena would hug him tight as she hid her head behind him, rather than his desire to wave goodbye. She lifted her arm in reply as they flew off towards the pass, and sighed as she turned back to her now empty chambers.

Erwin had left a week ago. He no longer spoke to her before he left, nor said when he would return. She would see his broom gone, or his seat empty at dinner, and know again she was alone.

Elan now lived in Helga's tower. He was tall like his father, but quick to anger and often sullen. He was careful not to seek out Erwin, looking at Rowena furtively when she walked by his side. He would watch Helena and turn away as she approached, flushing red and not speaking.

Rowena sat in front of the mirror, blowing out the candles before turning her face to the now darkened surface. She thought of Helena's gaiety and the laughing children of Gryffin and Bretta. She leaned close to the mirror, wishing to see her mother's brow or some memory of her life before.

Standing straight, she walked to the door, threw her cape over her shoulders and went to seek the one that she knew also waited. Rowena told Helga to send the boy to her, that she would wait by the main door, that it was time for them to speak. Now she watched the boy walk toward her and she smiled and slowly shook her head as she saw that he was as scared of her as she was of him.

"Elan," she greeted him. "It has been too long that we have not spoken. Come, I will show you where your father says his prayer."

She turned and walked down the path to the lake, climbed atop the great boulders and sat to wait for him.

He stood and watched as she walked away, not wanting to follow, and not wanting to stay. The promise of knowing more about his father's place in this valley won out, and shoving his hands in his pockets, he slowly followed her down the path. He saw her as she sat on the stones with her faced turned up to the sky, her lips moving in silent prayer as he had seen his father do before.

"My mother says her prayers aloud."

"She has different gods. I am sure you know this. Do you think I do not?"

"You are one of them." He jerked his head toward the castle. "My mother says I only have to be here long enough to control this thing."

"Do you not like having magic?"

"My mother says it is wrong. Father uses it often, but when he is gone, she says her prayers to clean the house of his ways. Sometimes I hear her saying prayers for God to take my magic from me."

Rowena turned to him and studied his face. She patted the stone she sat on, inviting him to join her, waiting until he had sat and turned to her.

"As a child I remember travellers who camped at the river near my village. I remember sneaking down to watch them." She saw him smirk and grinned at him. "If I was caught I know my father would have thrashed me. Nevertheless, I wanted so much to see the different ones that I would go against his wishes. That is what I called them then, different. I did not know there were non-magical people, only that some were different."

She picked up a hand of pebbles and threw one out to the water, then handed them to Elan, waiting for him to show his comfort. When finally his arm arced up and let go a stone, she smiled and looked back out at the lake.

"A man began to play, a lute you call it, we would say oud. Then a dark-haired woman began to sing. I listened, held captured by her voice. It was as if a goddess had found her throat and settled there, using her as a way to talk to me, so beautiful it was. If I close my eyes and think of her I can hear it still."

Elan looked at her oddly. "Mother sings. She sings her prayers in church."

"When we sing our prayers, you will say we chant."

He nodded to her. "My mother sings prettily. She used to sing to me."

"Ah, so good, Elan. I cannot sing and your mother cannot do magic."

They both turned and looked out to the water. "Rowena? My mother said that you may shun me."

"That word must be different here as well." She turned her whole body, sitting cross-legged, and scowled at him. "Explain the way she means it."

"She thinks you would want to push me from my father. She says to stay away from you, that you are a witch."

Rowena chuckled. "Of course I am a witch. Elan, the one that teaches the Muggle ways and knows better the differences is no longer here. We will find another who will teach you the ways that are different, and as time goes on you will learn why we stay here, and why only you and not your mother may see this place. Your father and the rest have fought for your right to be here. It was a fight that could have destroyed this school and, in doing so, our way of life. You should be proud of him and not shun his ways."

Elan pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and fought not to cry. He nodded.

"You should have come to school last year, Elan. It is true I did not know if I would stand to meet his son. Now that I have, I want you to know that I will not shun you as she thinks, nor will I keep your father from you."

"Helena does not speak to me."

"Understand that she sees you as you see her, as different and strange. Now go. Enough of this. Helga is in the kitchen and I smelled mince for dinner."

"I like her mince," Elan said as he scrambled to his feet. "Rowena?"

"Yes, Elan?" She stood as well, noticing the sinking sun and the coldness creeping over the water.

"Some of the others say I will be weak and not learn all the magic."

"We do not know how far you can go. We have just started to teach others such as you. You must do the best you can. Those that come behind you must not hear this hatred. Prove them wrong. It is the most important gift you could give to Erwin and his legacy to this school. Ask Helga to meet Marri, her sister, the one that lives at the river. She will help you understand."

He bit his lip before throwing his arms around her, and just as quickly letting go to run back to the castle. Rowena watched after him, feeling at peace with this child and the memory that his existence had almost destroyed her. She knew what she watched hurrying up the hill was the future of this world, and prayed quickly that the others could accept it.

.

.

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Helena sat on the slope of the meadow looking up to the pass and wanting to go to town. She thought to visit Marri or gain permission to travel further and see Alya and Salazar again. She was restless and sought a change from this place that felt so cut off from the rest of the world and all that she wanted.

She had seen things in the Muggle world that that both delighted and scared her. She had been terrified at the temples. Muggles used stone buildings, with roofs that hid the sky. They would recite prayers in languages not of their people and perform rituals that had lost their meaning to them.

Aldred had taken her to one such place and showed her how to place water on her fingers and press them to first her forehead and then in a pattern that signified a cross. She frowned and looked up to the ceiling and wondered how the gods could see. She watched and asked about the austere men in brown robes and single woman wearing wimples, not just the bridal caps and cloths but full wrappings about the chins as the old widows with dead sons would wear. Aldred had told her of priests of a god named Christ and pointed out the rings on the fingers of his brides.

Helena was horrified that they could not talk to their gods, and confused as to why these women would not want to have sons and daughters to offer up at naming, but chose to stay barren. When she saw all as one drop on their knees, and lower their heads in shame, she had stood and ran from the temple, feeling a sorrow at their obvious exile from grace.

She twisted a blade of grass from the core of the tiny stalk and tasted it, deep in thought and the memories of the city. Having finished her lessons and now qualified to sit her own test, she saw no point to it. The world was so changed that each village and tribe had no need for their own teacher.

Lying on her back, watching the white clouds as they began to gather and turn grey, she saw another year of cold and blowing snow ahead of her. Helena dreamed of the halls of Muggle study that Marri had spoken of in cities far away. Whole cities full of one teacher after another from different bloodlines that held different beliefs openly, discussing and debating. She longed for this and thought it wrong that the people of her blood should be the ones chosen to hide.

Erwin had puzzled at her, seeing her learn the Muggle ways of caring for her clothes and lighting the fires with embers carried instead of from the tip of her wand. He had spoken to Rowena, and decided that he must discern the why. Now seeing her alone in the meadow, he went to join her.

"Father." She sat up and crossed her legs, smiling. "You do not often take time in the day to sit."

"I wanted to find you alone, and away from the others." He sat down facing her, unable to stop his hand from stroking her head as he greeted her. "You seem troubled and distant, Helena. I am worried that you are practicing to hide with the Muggles as do Alya and Salazar."

"I am reading of a place I would like to visit. Paris is said to have peoples from all over and..."

"No, they are deciding how they will worship their own god. After cleansing the lands of all the old ways, they now fight amongst themselves. I am sure this war will next come here, but Helena, do not go to it."

"Further south? They make paintings and tapestries..."

"I will send out questions to other schools we have heard of. Perhaps they would let you come and you could see what they do."

"Marri says the Muggle schools are different, not like this one at all. She says they are small, and may teach only one thing. She says Healers learn only Healing and that there are schools that teach only the whys and how men think as they do. Can you imagine? Not just learning of how Oden sent his people here but the why?"

"That would be the problem," he said sadly. "If you asked such a question, and you even hinted that you came from his line, they would think you a witch and then set out to find the truth."

"Father, they teach the great truths and the wisdom that we seek." She looked at the ground and sighed. "The only thing left for me here is to marry."

"Would that be so bad? I receive owls requesting that I speak to young men on your behalf. As of yet I have sent them back as you have not mentioned one over the other and it is your mother's wish that we do not do the choosing."

"I am not done living yet, Father, not yet ready to stop thinking to tend a fire, or to waste my life teaching witches that grow up to do the same. Father, what is in this life for us? We study and learn, but it is not like in the old days where witches had a true place." She looked up at him and locked her eyes to his. "Father, I want more and do not know what that more is. I feel anxious and need to find my own place."

"Laulen has asked for you," he said softly, studying her face. "He is one year younger than you but his soul is much older. Laulen has a good income. He respects the old ways of the people, and he would allow you to continue your studies. You would want for nothing and live beyond the pass. There is much to see and traders that bring stories of the other world. You need to turn your thoughts to him and consider him as a serious suitor."

"You have spoken to him? You said you have sent them all away," she spat and jumped to her feet.

"I have spoken only to your mother and to Peska. She would be honoured to welcome you."

"You had no right." Helena wrapped her arms around her waist and stepped backwards away from him.

"It is not only my right but my last duty as your father to make sure you are provided for and kept safe." He stood and faced her anger, beginning to match it with his own.

"I will be safe and I will bring what I learn back with me to share with others."

"You have already made this decision?" He took a step closer to her, his magic rolling off him in angry waves.

"Yes. I need to find my own way, like my mother. I need to make my own mark on the world as she has. I may not be as smart, but I will be. I will find teachers elsewhere, and visit their libraries and learn the why and how man thinks. I will find why the men of the East and West think differently and when we know this maybe we can stop hiding and make them understand us."

Helena turned and ran back to the castle, leaving Erwin alone in the meadow, and hurried to the library. Yanking out large scrolls that had been cut and bound to books, she laid them on the floor and sat to study the maps of the world. She traced her finger along the names of rivers and mountain ranges, past cities and lists of peoples that lived in the strange places. Twice she paused and remembered what Marri had told her of the centres of learning, searching for a place that would be safer than another would.

After nearly the whole afternoon had passed, her finger slid down and found the Via Egnatia, the small river between the east and west of the world. She leaned forward and followed the waterway, seeing few villages listed. Thinking she had remembered the name she sought incorrectly, she again raised her finger to the source or the river and traced it down.

Apollonia. She had found the name. Apollonia, that Marri said was a place of great learning, sheltered and high in the mountains, not unlike the quiet valley. Helena sat back and worried her lip. Then, with a silent nod, she made her decision.

She could take only what was hers. Her clothing, she shrunk and packed in a sack. She took up the emeralds Salazar had given her when she was still too young to remember, and two gold pins she used on her cloaks, thinking to use them as trade. Looking around the chambers, she took the comb her mother used on her hair, and a small hand mirror Erwin had given her in secret.

Almost to the door, she turned and rushed into her mother's room, opened the chest and brought out the diadem. Rowena did not wear this anymore. Helena surmised she had already gained what knowledge it had once held. She was conflicted and worried at what she planned to do.

Had not her mother said this held great knowledge? That someday it would teach her as well? Did she not need some sign of dignity and heritage in Apollonia? Would not a sign of royal dignity but also heritage help her get into the school? Had it not belonged to her father's mother, thereby becoming hers at Rowena's death? Was this not her inheritance?

Slipping the diadem into her pocket, and hoping to return it before it Rowena missed it, she hurried to the broom shed to pick the fastest broom she could find. She looked back up to her mother's window in the tower as she pulled her hood low over her head, then she pushed off the ground and eased the handle of the broom up. She rose in the air and flew high to clear the summit and headed east and not the oft-travelled route of the south.