Faerie Folly and Wizard Wands

Chapter Two

By the time she was ten, she had forgotten those early years. They were the vaguest memories that haunted the deepest sleeps, and what dreams she could never recall. If asked, she said Granna had raised her from birth and her mother was forced into the foggy corners of her mind.

Granna, however, was no ordinary human. She knew things. She knew how to brew a good medicine from herbs, and how to make things grow. She was wiser than most people, and she was gentle and kind. How her mother had known of this woman, she never knew, but it was by some unspoken destiny that had left her in the good woman's care.

It was Granna who had taught her how to speak English; the faerie language of her mother was lost in the wilds o her mind. She learned all the tricks of herbs and ancient runes of strange types that Granna knew from the deep recesses of her brain. And then Granna herself would sometimes marvel at what she had learned from her fairy mother, though she could never quite tell Granna how she had learned what she knew.

They did not go to any other place; the red house was all she knew. There was always the impression that others did not approve of Granna, though this was never observed or said. Some perhaps would have called the old woman a witch, and that the girl was her child come from blackness. But that was not true in any form of understanding, and since there was no interaction from any save those who sought Granna, little was ever said of her.

Granna said people were ignorant; that any fool could make the same brews she did, if only they knew how. In a way, she was a medicine woman-and a few came to her for their aches and pains.

As she grew, Granna allowed her to see the people when they came, hurrying into the deep, dark red glow of the cedar house they called home. Some came for things practical, such as to rid of an ache in the back, or remove spots on a face. They were never dressed the same, those people, with long long hair and long draped clothes. They wore homemade jewelry, and were rustic in their manners, so Granna said.

Once a young woman came for a Love Potion, and when she'd gone, clutching the tiny vial, Granna had confided,

"That's no love potion, mind you, Sabine," she said, winking as they watched the young girl disappear in the gloaming. "That there is only a bit o' perfume, banged to a pulp and squeezed from our roses. It's precious, too; you know how rose petals do not give up of their juices freely..." she sighed, and dropped the homespun curtain. "Nay, the rosie perfume would be good for any woman in that group. It smells sweet and delicate...and strong. Indeed, men for miles of their type will speak of the wearer...she'll be 'the girl who smells like spring' to many an awed laddie."

Granna, in this way, exposed her work to Sabine; and soon it was Sabine's "potions" that went out the door, hidden under caps and capes. Granna said that they swore dislike of her in public, but in truth, they valued her and her ways.

Once, a particularly cankerous woman came as night settled. She stunk of old boiled foods and demanded a potion of sorts to cure the dryness of her hands.

She held them out, and their palms were patchy and white, the fingers chaffed, cracked, and seeping blood in a few places.

"It's from doin' dish after dish all me life after preparin' ev'ry meal my man eats. Ne'r a day to spare-I'm always at the water a'scrubbin' or cookin'!" she told Granna indifferently. Apparently the woman did not mind so much her chores, but the aftermath of the dry hands. She stood, with her long uncombed hair, staring down at Granna with expectations. Her skirt was wrinkled and her shirt low on her chest and gauzy.

Granna approached her in a calm, soothing manner. Never had Sabine seen her upset or angry. She took the woman's hands, and ran her fingers gently in the tattered palms.

"Hmm...a juniper and rosemary...with milk...and a...yes...indeed...Sabine just made some..." she often spoke to herself when she observed an ailment, then she turned and maneuvered carefully to the open cellar door, to disappear in the dark basement.

"Sabine, eh?" the woman, for the first time, turned to look at the young girl, where she sat, breaking white pine needles apart, near the window. "I've heard tell of you. Come here, then."

She beckoned, and immediately she came to her biding.

"My my! We are a pretty little 'un, then, ain't we?"

Sabine didn't speak in return, just looked at the floor, then finally raised her eyes.

"I don't have much to compare to, please."

The woman seemed a bit struck at her answer, then, for lack of other words, she held out her hands.

"See these? Keep yourself pretty, then, and you won't spend your life a' scrubbin' like I do for any man. You'll marry rich n' high, hear?"

As she held out her hands, palms up, instinctively Sabine reached and lightly let her fingertip touch one of the woman's. Immediately, the woman moved aside with a gasp, yanking her hands away.

"You burned me!" she exclaimed, then paused, and turned her hands over, to examine the fingertip Sabine had touched delicately. "But the pain and bleedin' is gone from just there! Why-you are-!"

Here Granna approached, and placed a small jug of cream to the woman.

"Now then, here we go; and be off afore the night holds too dark. Things a-creep in these woods, as you well know."

The woman nodded, and moved to the door, her eyes still holding Sabine's.

Granna stood by the young girl, her hand, heavy and strong, on her shoulder. "Put a small amount of the cream on your hands every night afore beddin', and whenever you venture outdoors without waterin' your hands, hear? It's a cream my Sabine made for you-now go as I say."

When the woman had shut the door, silence poured into her ears and Granna did not stir. Finally, Sabine's voice descended trembling into the deep dusk.

"What did I do, Granna?"

And then she stirred, and bent to look at Sabine's face, her eyes sparkling in the rich glow of a few candles and the fireplace. Her hand, entle and sure, cupped the girl's chin, and made her eyes meet her own.

"Always did I know you were something different, Sabine. I don't know what, but something inside your very blood is unusual. I knew so the first day you came out of the miry wilds, standing stark on the edge of my garden-as ifen you were standing on the brink of a whole new world. Oddest of all, you were a wee 'un of but three or four, knew not a drop of language-at least, no wordings I ever heard of, and come from the woods as clean as a fresh stream."

She moved to the fire to sit and picked up more pine boughs from where Sabine had left them. As she broke them methodically, she continued speaking distantly, trance-like, recalling several years ago, while Sabine stood silently where Granna had left her, and listened. This dialogue was new to the girl, who had never before asked Granna to speak of the past; and the information had never seemed important enough to discuss. The sudden turn of events that had led to the question "What did I do?" only opened up an entirely new branch of discovery for the young girl, who remembered nothing but the warm red glow of the cedar house.

"Indeed, child, you were unnaturally clean, and you were shinin'-in a translucent, lovely way, almost your very skin was glowing, this beauty is still within you-anyone with eyes can see you're something special just by looking at you."

She dropped the free needles into a deep bowl, and went on, in a deep quiet voice, "This healing power now; this indeed proves my inner feelings. You're not normal." She glanced at Sabine. "True, true, I, too, am not average, but me-I'm just a wise woman. You're power of something I never came across in all my years." This sentence hung in the rosy air, and then faded, when Sabine went to silently aid Granna in breaking the needles.