4: The Apothecary

 

She peered in the window, hoping this was the place Alphonse had mentioned. A bell hanging over the door made a jangling noise as Noir entered. The room was wrapped floor to ceiling with dark wood shelves crowded not just with books, but with stacks of loose papers, and an odd assortment of paraphernalia. There were rows and rows of bottles. Some held dried herbs, some had odd colored fungi, some were filled with bits of crystals or brightly colored powders. One whole shelf had clear boxes of bones—everything from tiny bird vertebrae to a selection of hands sorted by size. One large box held a ribcage and the skull of what looked like some large carnivore. A large glass jar held shed snake skins. Another seemed to be filled with black pebbles that, on closer inspection, turned out to be dried black beetles. 

There was a large desk in the center of the room where a woman sat looking at a beautifully tooled, leather-bound volume. Delicate fingers traced the gilding on the spine of the book she was holding. The woman was middle-aged, thin, almost bony. She had the wispy silver hair and slanted eyes typical of elven blood, but her ears did not have the classic pointed tips. Her wire-rimmed spectacles held thick lenses tinted pale pink. She looked up as Noir stepped nearer. Her smile was warm and genuine. “Can I help you?” she asked. “What exactly are you looking for, my dear?” Noir felt a pulling sensation, as if something was touching her shields, and she had an intense urge to smile back at woman.

“Do you have or do you know where I could find any census records of the area? I am looking for information about my father. He grew up somewhere near here.” Noir knew it was a long shot. All she knew of her father was that he’d left her and her mother when she was a toddler. She had only a vague memory of a tall man who picked her up and bounced her on his knee, tickled her and made her laugh. She remembered the lace trim on his shirt, on the collar and cuffs, and the silk cord with which he tied his long, wavy black hair back.

The woman rose and her long purple taffeta skirts made a swishing noise as she made her way out from behind the desk. She held out her hands for Noir to take. “May I read you? Take my hands. It will be faster that way.” Noir looked into the woman’s clear blue eyes and felt an instant urgency. This was the person she needed.

She laid her fingers lightly into the woman’s hands. As she did, she felt that pulling sensation again. She looked into the woman’s eyes and the memory surfaced again, the one she had dreamed over and over for years, but clearer now and far more vivid than she’d ever had it before. It felt real.

They all sat in the grass by the side of the river. Mama was singing a sweet sad tune as she wove reeds into a basket. Da was twisting daisies into a crown for six-year-old Noir. He placed it on her head and then looked in her eyes and said, “You will take good care of your Mama for me, won’t you, princess?” He hugged her tight and she could hear her mother’s singing falter and turn to soft sobbing. “Ah, pulu, don’t cry. The King needs me, but I will be back before you know it.”

“You say you will, but I fear I will never see you again. I fear you will lose track of the years and forget us. I will be gone when you return. If you return.” Noir wasn’t quite sure what was upsetting her mother, but she hated the tears.

“You can have the crown, mama. Don’t cry!” Noir’s tiny hands pulled off the daisy crown and tried to put it on her mother. Then in a swirl of multicolored lights the vision was gone.

Noir opened her eyes and saw she was lying on a wine-colored couch, wrapped in a thick embroidered quilt. The Apothecary stood over her and was stroking her face with a cool wet cloth that smelled of witch hazel. “How do you feel, girl? You have been out for over an hour. You went very deep.” Her dark blue eyes frowned with concern. “I did not expect that.”

“I saw my parents! I have had dreams with them before, but nothing this real! Do it again!” Noir struggled to sit up, but her head was pounding, and she could not get her balance. “What is wrong with me?”

“You are not fully human, are you?” queried the woman looking closely at Noir. She took Noir’s left hand in hers and began tracing the lines of her palm with one elegant finger. “You would not have had such an intense reaction if you were a human.” She moved to a shelf full of very old books. Selected one embossed tome with locking clasps. After she perused a few pages, she looked at Noir again. “What do you know of dragons, my dear?”

1: On the road

The snow was thick and her fingers were numb, but she had found a tiny cave; actually more of a dent in the mountainside. Night was falling and she had to get off the road and rest. The trek from the capital city had been quick and mostly along well-traveled roads, until she reached the mountains. Just the other side of these mountains was the village where she grew up. Her journey had been quiet, the road empty except for a few farmers going the other way, bringing their late crops to town. She had only stopped in one Inn because she didn't want to spend her coin. She didn't know when she would return to school, if at all.

Meister Ilbin had forbidden her to leave. Told her the roads were not safe. Told her to wait until spring, until she could hook up with a caravan. She had left that night, silently, stealthily, so no one could stop her. This was probably stupid. She would have been safer remaining at the academy, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she had to get home. She needed to get home. There was something wrong at home.

She set down her pack carefully as it had all her worldly goods in it, limited as those were. A couple books, her handwritten grimoire and her pens, a change of clothing, two changes of under garments, her knife and her mug, one blanket.

Her hands shook with the cold as she gathered up twigs and moss, and several dead branches from a nearby pine. She scraped the ground in front of her niche clear of snow, then she constructed her fire. A circle first, then tinder, on top of that kindling and fuel. Now for the tricky part. Holding her hands on either side of the pile of kindling she prepared to call for fire. Fire is always such an elusive element. Half the time at school she could barely call a spark, the other half she might as well set a forest ablaze. The Meisters all said be patient, go slow, but she was never one to wait. Now it suddenly struck her how dangerous this cold could be if her magic failed her.

She positioned her hands again. She reached deep in her mind and saw the fire. She envisioned the red spark, the curl of smoke, the lick of flame as it swept around the logs she had stacked. There was a loud whoosh and she opened her eyes. A huge grin split her face. She wanted to dance with glee. She had done it. Now to control it. Moving her fingers in complicated patterns she dimmed the light of the fire, but turned up the heat. With another sweep of her fingers she set a stasis spell. That should hold the flames through the night allowing her to get some sleep without having to replenish the wood or freeze to death. She relaxed her shoulders letting go of the tension she had been carrying.

From her pack she retrieved a hunk of cheese and a piece of candied ginger. She poured water into the tin cup and set it near the flames. She crumbled a handful of the mint she had gathered along the way into the cup and dropped in the ginger. While she waited for the water to warm, she nibbled on pieces of the cheese.

It wasn't so much that she was bad at magic, she reflected. It was just that her magic did not always come when she called. As if it were a recalcitrant creature with a mind of its own. For all the other students at the Academy it was just a matter of learning the right words and the right gestures. Everyone there had magic. They were the privileged ones, gifted humans touched by the divine—or so said the instructors. To be honest, Noir thought, it was more likely some accidental combination of blood and ancestry. Meister Tobin, who was the best at water magic and who could call any beast, had slightly more pointed ears than most humans. She saw his ears once when the wind snatched his hat from his head. She wanted to ask him if he had Elven blood in his family, but that was not the kind of question that was considered acceptable among the polite society of Norrebrox. When she was first brought to the school by her grandmother, she had had it drilled into her that one did not ask personal questions. There were punishments—being slapped was the least of these, losing a meal, hard chores, and having her reading privileges cut were the worst. Especially having access to the library taken away.

In her first year at the school she had gone hungry a lot until she learned not to speak out of turn. In her second and third years her tutor was Meistra Cerrida, who took it as a personal affront when Noir’s magic went awry. Noir suffered the slaps, but started to notice who among the students were never or rarely slapped. What did they have that she did not? Most of the students had registered an affinity for some form of magic by year two. The girls who had a way with plants and making things grow, almost always came from one of the seven witching families. The boys who could move metal and stone were invariably shorter and sturdier, and probably had dwarf or goblin blood, albeit diluted by generations, mixed with their human. Noir was the daughter of a witch, who was also the daughter of a witch and although she knew all the Magica Medica, the encyclopedia of plants and their properties, she would be as likely to wither an herb as to force it to bloom if she called on her magic.

In her fourth year, Noir got Meister Ilbin as her tutor. He was would never harsh and never restricted her reading, but she knew she was a disappointment to him. She could command the elements—sometimes. “Focus, Noir. Focus!” he would say. “You have the magic, you just need to concentrate on the forms!”

Magic was either in your bones, your blood, or it was not. If you had magic, you could learn to use that magic. She had magic. She felt it singing inside her. The Meisters were stunned at the level of her power—when she could get it to rise. But sometimes no matter how hard she concentrated, no matter how perfect her gestures and chants were, she could not make fire, not even light a candle. Other times when she called the flames, she got wind, or water. It was so frustrating. 

Maybe this time it was her need that brought out the fire. She did have a great need. To get to her village. To find her grandmother, Baba. To save . . . to save something. . . . She didn't yet know what it was, but it was nagging at the back of her mind. It would come, eventually. 

She rolled up in her coat, tucked her hands in the sleeves, and using her pack as a backrest she fell asleep to the dancing of the firelight. 

Her dreams as usual were of her childhood.

                                                                                               >> 2: Lost Maiden