Chapter Text
Stormy nights always brought visitors. Was there some yet-undiscovered rule about that somewhere hidden away in the tomes filling the witch's shelves? Was that why it seemed that, like clockwork, if a storm rolled overhead after dusk began to fall, Myrna was all but guaranteed to get her hair wet?
She sighed down at the roaring fire she had only just stoked as a series of dull thuds sounded on the door. Every knock against that door sounded dull, because the ancient wood was so thick with moss that it was like trying to knock through carpet. It groaned when opened, as though announcing each visitor to the house at large, and always closed with reluctance.
The face that met her was pale and wide-eyed. The man was out of breath, having run here up the winding mountain path. He blinked at Myrna, then glanced around the room behind her, as though hoping another face might appear. "I--I was looking for--"
"The witch, yes. What do you need?"
He squinted at her through the dim firelight, raindrops dripping down his eyebrows and still huffing from the climb. "You're the witch?"
"Do you need me to put the hat on?"
"N-no, I just…" he faltered, failed to look her fully in the eye, and decided to give up. "It's--my grandfather, he's taken a fever and his breathing's getting really bad and the physician won't be returning to the village until next week--"
As he spoke, Myrna was already pulling open a worn satchel and throwing jars of herbs haphazardly into it. White willow bark was good for fever, wasn't it? Maybe feverfew too. Poor breathing? She'd read something somewhere about that, hadn't she? Her eyes darted over the shelves and shelves of neatly-labeled substances, but nothing stood out. Brightly, as a distraction, she urged the villager to continue. "How long ago did this begin?"
The villager, still standing in her doorway, dripping everywhere, began a fumbling account of his grandfather's illness, while Myrna proceeded to climb onto the bookshelf. This would not normally be considered a simple task for one wearing numerous long skirts, yet she did it in such a swift, careless manner that the villager, after an uncomfortable pause, awkwardly resumed his explanation. His mother had always taught him that it was both rude and unwise to question a witch's actions.
The book she sought after was discovered on the top shelf, and after some careful wiggling, sprang free of its place and sent a cascade of dust down on Myrna's head. She wrinkled her nose up at the offending shelf before dropping back down to the floor. She flipped through the pages, which were aged but neatly kept, every line written in the same ornate calligraphy. "Cough… cough… cough… aha!" She rushed past the baffled villager back to her wall of herbs and plucked up the required jar. "Marshmallow root. Of course I knew that."
She shoved the book into the bag just in case she forgot again and pulled her cloak off the hook. That motion brought the first sense of relief that she had seen on the villager's face since he arrived. If the witch was coming, even a witch who confused him, then everything should be fine, should it not?
On her way out, Myrna reached for her black pointed hat. It was raining out, and she did so hate to get her hair wet.
***
The storm still grumbled to itself hours later, though it was a quieter sort of sound, as though even the thunder found the hour to be late, and wished to find its bed. Myrna sat alone with her sleeping patient, listening to the rain tapping on the thin little windows.
She had followed the book's instructions carefully. She was sure of it. Thyme before mint, chopped thrice with a silver blade. She had counted the chops one by one, to be sure she did not get lost in the middle.
And yet the sickly wheeze of his every breath sliced through the gentle sound of the storm, rending the darkness. Irritably, Myrna dragged her stool closer to the single candle that was posted by his bed (to the east of him, just as the book specified) and glared down at the careful script. She was doing this right! Why wasn't it working?
A particularly pained wheeze sounded from the sleeping man, and she shot a glare up at his chest, as though the source of the sound were some nasty little creature sitting atop his nightshirt that she could simply scold into submission. "Go away already!" she hissed.
"I am afraid I cannot," a voice replied.
Myrna's breath caught in her throat. She had been alone, the door firmly closed against family members who might fuss and disturb her work. It was a tiny room, barely containing space enough for her to perch on her stool between the bed and the dresser. And yet there was a voice. Not a very loud voice. No, it seemed to drum through the walls with the rumbling thunder, deep and soft as velvet.
The blonde witch, without quite knowing why, straightened her back. She took a long breath. She did not turn, but instead watched the candle beside the bed. "It is rude to intrude upon a witch's work."
The long flame flickered briefly, as though in a wind that could not be felt. The voice remained as it was, soft as a shroud, heavy as the weight of centuries, and yet there was a certain note of amusement. "Forgive my rudeness, good witch."
"You're not forgiven," Myrna continued. Her voice shook, but it was loud. Louder than his. "You were not invited here, and I have work to do."
The very air around her felt afraid to stir. The weight of his words seemed to freeze it in place. "I need no invitation to enter a place. All doors open to me."
She could feel the corners of the book biting into her hands as she clutched it. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Close your eyes, whispered a voice in the back of her mind. Turn your head away, and pretend you heard nothing, and none need ever know. No one would fault her for it, if they did. It was expected. It was human. She was still that, even beneath the spells and the potions. She was still mortal, with a mortal's innate dread of the end.
She took a breath, ignoring the voice, ignoring the sickness curdling in the back of her throat. She still kept her eyes trained straight ahead, but she could not be silent. "Then you can go elsewhere. This is my charge. I'm healing him. His family asked me to."
"I am afraid not." Darkness shifted in the corner of her eye. What had seemed to be merely the faint outline of some piece of furniture now moved to stand beside the sleeping man's bed, opposite of Myrna.
She did what she was told. She kept her eyes on the candle. But that did not mean she had to take this sitting down. "No!" Myrna leapt to her feet, slamming the book down on the nightstand. Somehow, the man beside her did not wake. Somehow, the candle did not flicker. She glared down at the small point of light. "I did the spell right! He will recover! He is my charge and you will not take him!"
"The decision is not yours, I'm afraid." The note of finality could be heard in the voice. There was no evidence of surprise at her outburst, or even hesitation.
"No, it is yours. You can choose to leave him with me and come back another day."
"I have heard that it is bad luck to bargain with death."
Myrna let out a sharp laugh. "Too late to worry about that, I'm afraid. I'm in the wrong business for luck."
"I do not require your approval."
"And yet, here you are. Still arguing with me instead of taking what you're here for and departing." She paused, and frowned a little at the candle's flame. In her peripheral vision, the shadow had not moved from its place beside the bed. She was tempted, so tempted, to turn her head then. "Do you talk to them? When you take them?"
In the stillness, she could hear her own heartbeat, still drumming madly in her ears, joining the percussive rapping of rain on the windowpane. If the entity breathed, she was sure she would have heard him take a long breath. "No. It is not like that."
"Pity. You must not have many people you can talk to, then."
Something felt different, this time, when he paused. She could almost feel his eyes on her, studying her. The candle's flame wavered uncertainly. "You are a very strange witch."
"Yes."
"He is not even your family. You do not know him."
"He is my responsibility. I don't abandon my responsibility."
"Even knowing that I could just as well take another in his place?"
Myrna stood to her full height. She looked down at the candle's steady flame. She spread her arms out wide, her long sleeves a sharp slice of color in the darkness. "Go ahead, then."
The candle flickered.
The old man's children would later comment to one another how pale the young witch looked when she descended the stairs. White, like she had seen a ghost. How dazed she seemed, when they urgently pushed gifts of fresh bread and preserves into her arms as thank you. Perhaps this new witch was as flighty as she looked. A pity the old one had to leave them.
Still, when they checked on their father, they found him sleeping soundly, his breathing untroubled, a candle by his bed burning low.
***
Myrna stomped through the woods, or she tried to. Despite the thick trees overhead, the long night of rain had left the ground thoroughly waterlogged, so that every stomp came out more as a wet squelch. Still, she tried her best to let her fury be known to the woods at large. The woods, obligingly, refrained from catching at her hair with spindly branches, or from placing too many roots in her path. She was a witch, after all, and moreover, she was their witch.
How dare he? What did it matter that he was some immortal entity? It gave him no right! No right at all!
The trees groaned around her in the shifting wind, their hollow sound reminding her of his voice. Myrna snarled, swinging her lantern furiously as she walked, which cast strange shadows all around. How dare he have a voice that shuddered still through her bones, no matter how fast she walked or how the rain tried to mute all sound by whispering on the leaves overhead? Even now she could hear its parting comments to her.
"You may have bought him a day or a year. All are the same to me. I cannot tell you when next I visit his side."
"That is one more day or year than he had. I am satisfied with that."
"Then perhaps, before I visit again, you might remember to give him the marshmallow root as you planned."
Forgetting her instructions, forgetting etiquette, forgetting safety, she rounded on him. "I did not forget--!"
She was staring at empty air, and a rain-splattered window. Beside her, the candle flame glowed and swayed.
Was he mocking her? Treating her like some kind of imbecile? Like she was--what? Not a proper witch? Just a girl in a silly hat carrying a book filled with someone else's words?
Myrna stomped over a ridge, but some of the fight had already gone out of her. Overhead, the clouds were finally starting to tatter like worn clothing, and moonlight was starting to glint through the ragged edges.
The wind brought a cry to her ears. Myrna paused, her anger forgotten, listening. The woods sent her a second cry, mournful and pathetic. She stepped off the path to follow it. The woods, somehow, cleared the way for her.
She paused in a clearing, waiting to hear it again. The light of her lantern glinted off the damp grass, and the shadows of the trees around her seemed to stand taller, a ring of sentries. There was a flash of white beneath the bushes.
"Oh! My, where did you come from?"
The sound of her voice drew it out in hesitant, jerky movements. Eyes that glinted yellow in the darkness watched her warily. It moved closer to her and froze, trembling, on the verge of bolting.
Myrna knelt down, ignoring the horrid feeling of her soaked skirts pressing into her knees, and held out her hand. "Come on, now. You were calling for me, weren't you?"
It drew closer, eyes trained on her, ears swiveling for signs of danger. She could see now that the cat's eyes were green, and that its white fur was matted with rain. Myrna sighed. "Do you want a nice warm house or do you want to stay out in the rain? Because I'm done with the rain, myself. Tell you what, I think those farmers gave me some sausage to take home. Would you like some of that?" She pulled open her bag and started digging through it. "Though really, anything must be better than--" she froze. She pulled her hand out and looked at the jar it had landed on. The label said, in neat script, "marshmallow root." Its contents were untouched.
Swallowing back her tears, Myrna looked again at the white cat. "Let's have that sausage at home, shall we? Do cats drink ale? Because I think I could use some."
Somehow, the white cat seemed to have lost its fear. It trotted up to her side and butted its head against her arm. Myrna wiped at her face. "You know, you're the wrong color for a familiar. Let's be wrong together."
***
The storm stalked away in the night, leaving behind a too-bright morning that the lacy curtains on Myrna's bedroom window were helpless to push back. After uselessly trying to bury herself beneath her blankets to capture a few more minutes of sleep, Myrna finally threw them to the floor in frustration.
She glared around at the room at large. It was cozy to the point of stuffy, the kind of room one would expect to find a very old lady in. Everything old and mismatched but lovingly cared for over the years. The bed small but comfortable, piled high with cushions. More shelves, reaching all the way to the ceiling like the ones in the front room, stuffed with books and trinkets and decades of gifts from nearby villagers who were either very grateful or merely thought that it never hurt to keep a witch happy.
She had not touched the books or the trinkets, or the curtains she hated so much. She had slept in this bed for months now, and yet she still treated it as though its owner might return any day.
But that's me, she thought. As though she had to remind herself that the bed, the books, the curtains, were all hers.
An old ache threatened to worm its way up Myrna's throat. She sat up abruptly, jarring it from its place, and pushed herself off the bed. The curtains were thrown open, the discarded blankets gathered into a bundle and piled back onto the mattress, and with an about-face, Myrna marched herself down to the kitchen in search of tea.
She found the cat exactly where he had staked his claim the night before on the small mat by the fireplace. Myrna had always considered that particular mat a rather hideous color, so he could have at it. He made a sleepy noise as she stepped over him to reach for the kettle.
"You've certainly settled in," she muttered, as she made her way into the kitchen.
The house did not have a kitchen, exactly. Or it had a very large kitchen, depending on how one defined a kitchen. If a witch is highly valued by her neighbors, then she need not often concern herself with simple matters of cooking. Gifts of food tended to appear of their own volition. As such, whatever might have been a kitchen at one time appeared to have evolved for other purposes. Cupboards were filled with neat rows of glass jars. Bundles of the herbs that would later fill them were strung up from the ceiling, a neat paper label tied to each. The counters had been converted to an arcane laboratory of sorts, crowded with mortars and pestles, scales for weighing ingredients, candles and crystals of all sizes and colors.
There was a perfectly functional wood stove, but using it meant trying to remove the enormous cauldron from on top of it. Instead, she filled the kettle and returned to the main fireplace. The white cat finally lifted his head to watch her with bright green eyes as she stoked the embers and began to pile fresh wood over them.
"My friend had a cat," she told him conversationally. "A pure black one. Everyone tried to tell her that was unlucky, but she refused to give it up for anything." The fresh wood began to smoke, and flames sprung to life, eagerly licking along its surface. "When I came here, I thought how perfectly that cat would fit in this house. She was made for a place like this. But here you are, instead." Myrna lifted the heavy kettle and hung it carefully over the fire. "Looking like you belong on the lap of a princess. You'd like that, wouldn't you? A lacey pillow to sit on, your meals served in a silver dish."
The cat sat up, shook himself, and began to wash his paw. Myrna sighed. "Should have gotten something that can talk back. I wonder if any of the local crows would be interested."
The bookshelves loomed before Myrna, a solid wall of information collected throughout what must have been a lifetime. She had been slowly picking away at the edges of it, trying to glean what she could about cough remedies and poultices and the like. That was most of what the old witch Samthann specialized in, before she left. Herbs and remedies to heal, to ease pain. But surely, in all of these books, collected and written and assembled throughout a lifetime (and how long was that lifetime? Myrna had never asked, and Samthann had never offered), there was something to explain the events of last night. What was the nature of the being she faced? Did she really do something so brazen as argue with Death?
More importantly, did Death have a sense of humor, or did she imagine it?
Myrna started at the top, scrambling up the shelves like a ladder and pulling stacks of books down to flip through haphazardly. As she expected, most of what she found were encyclopedic entries of ailments and remedies, or herbs and how best to grow or find them. Sprinkled throughout, though, were scraps of advice for warding off entities more powerful than a mere fever. The entry for St. John's wort recommended its use both for elevating mood and for undoing harmful magics. The one for blemishes suggested ruling out the interference of jealous Fae by touching the afflicted area with iron implements.
And then there was Death. How powerful Death was, for good and ill. The hand of a dead person could remove the illness from one still living, and yet the gaze of a corpse being carried from its home could draw others in the family to follow it. A candle used at a funeral could be used to remove burns.
But what was Death? If Death could be predicted, or tricked, or outsmarted, was it not, in some way, a person? What sort of person was it? Would it be better if it were some faceless entity? Would it be worse if it were a Fae?
Myrna shuddered at that last thought. Far worse, if death were a Fae.
Hours later, and stacks of books crowded the floor around Myrna's chair. She and the white cat had consumed their breakfast of cold sausages, bread, and apples before her search finally brought her something. The book was called, "On the Natural Forces."
Here were the gods and the Fae, the spirits and the ghosts. "Hey cat," Myrna said, flopping down into her chair with the book open. "There's a chapter on moon deities in here. Should I name you after the moon since you're so pale?"
The cat flicked his ear, a response that could really be interpreted in multiple ways. Myrna left the moon chapter behind for the time being. The entry on Death was long and complex, for what healer was not deeply concerned about the nature of death?
"Wait…" Myrna muttered, after skimming through several pages on the topic. "These don't make any sense! The stories all contradict each other!" From across the room, the white cat paused in his post-breakfast washing to blink at her with keen green eyes. Myrna huffed. "I'm serious! Look, there's one story where Death is a Fae, but there's another one where Death was a human prince who was cursed. And some of them make it sound like Death has always been the same, but other ones make it sound like the job gets passed from person to person, or like every village has its own local death spirit. And that's only the stories from around here. Augh." She sat back, frustrated. "All that searching, and there isn't even a clear answer? This is why I hate books."
The cat went back to washing himself. The sunbeams pushing through the curtains had grown shorter as the sun climbed overhead, and the fire had burned to low embers. On the page that sat open in Myrna's lap, a rough sketch of what must have been Death looked out ominously from beneath a black cloak, scythe in hand. The face was covered, but long white hair was just visible beneath the edge of the hood. Beneath the illustration was the caption: The Ankou.
Myrna snapped the book closed. "Juniper haircap!" she announced to the cat. "I need to make that rash treatment, and it called for juniper haircap. Let's take a walk, shall we?"
***
The rain had left behind spongey damp ground, though much of the path had dried out in the crisp morning light. The cat walked with Myrna in the way that cats do--trotting ahead with tail held high like a flagpole, darting after squirrels up trees, re-emerging from the underbrush with the pleased look of a predator that has successfully terrorized the smaller fauna. The white cat never simply walked beside her, but he never quite let her out of his sight, either.
Myrna halfheartedly pushed aside undergrowth as she slowly walked, searching for the spiny plant. In truth, she had only a rough idea of what juniper haircap was for, and had already forgotten which recipe she had been attempting to learn when she spotted it. Her mind was on candles and shadows, and forgotten jars of marshmallow root.
She walked for hours. Not altogether unproductively, as it turned out. There were some herbs she knew on sight now, that once spotted, became easier to distinguish from the other foliage crowding the marshy forest floor. Only when the hem of her skirt was thoroughly muddied did she begin to feel better.
The trees shuddered overhead, carrying with them a cry, as they did the night before. But this was not the mournful wail of a wet cat in search of shelter. This was a cry of agony.
Myrna hiked up her skirts and ran, the forest whipping past her as easily as though the very trees stepped aside to allow her passage.
She found it alone, no sign of the hunter that had tried to bring it down. Still trying to stumble on wobbly legs. She paused at the edge of the clearing, still panting from her run. Deer were so much larger in real life than in her imagination. The white of its eyes was visible as it looked around frantically, its antlers dipping as though preparing to charge.
It saw her. Myrna froze, her chest burning with the untaken breaths it craved.
The deer raised its head and released another cry. Its throat was matted with blood, an arrow embedded deep into its flesh. Slowly, it bowed its crowned head, and folded itself onto the ground.
Myrna finally inhaled, slowly. She felt the trees still above her as she stepped forward. The creature did not react when she knelt beside it. A single eye watched her, wild and knowing.
She felt him before she saw him. A chill on the back of her neck. She waited. The deer's labored breathing filled the seconds.
"Well?" she finally muttered sharply. "Don't you have a job to do?"
Somewhere nearby, a crow called. It was daylight still, and yet somehow in the corner of her eye there existed a shadow that had not been there before. She stared down at the arrow shaft, at the dark blood that painted the wood.
"Are you not going to demand this life as well?" His voice was soft, still. So soft that it could have been lost beneath the trees' whispers, if the trees had not gone silent.
Myrna realized her fingernails were digging into her palms. "Would you mock me at a time like this?"
"No." The voice said it so flatly that some of her anger was tempered immediately by its coldness. "I only wonder what fate brings you to stand in my path twice in such a brief time."
"Well," her eyes flickered close, so tantalizingly close, to that shadow, trying to gauge a face she could not see. "I'm a witch, aren't I?"
Nor could she understand the brief pause that followed her statement. "Indeed," the deep voice finally said.
The animal let out a pained sound, and Myrna laid her hand on its flank. Its fur was soft, she realized. "Please," she whispered. "The arrow is deep. I cannot do anything for it. End its suffering."
She did not see the shadow move. And yet, somehow, another hand was laid upon the deer's shoulder.
Myrna did not look away as the deer shuddered with its last breaths. "It's almost over now," she promised it. "The pain will pass and you'll wake up somewhere full of grass and flowers and pretty lady deer and there won't be any hunters and…" She trailed off as the creature went still.
The hand still rested on the creature's flank beside hers. It was gloved in black, masking any features that would betray what the thing it belonged to would be like. After a moment, it slid away.
"Wait," Myrna whispered. The hand had disappeared from her view, but the shadow in the corner of her eye remained. Waiting.
She had already broken half the taboos every grandmother warned of by acknowledging him. By arguing with him. The Ankou. The bringer of death.
And so far, he had not struck her down where she stood for her brazenness.
"Thank you," she said. "For offering mercy twice."
In the silence that followed her statement, the trees rustled overhead. The world was still breathing, even if she was not.
Finally, she heard his voice again. "You are welcome, good witch."
"Myrna." She stood then, and turned fully around to face the shadow.
The drawing in Samthann's book had not been entirely inaccurate. There was the black cloak, like shadows given form, tattered and ever-moving. There was the hood, pulled up over his face. Long hair spilled from it, bone-white.
She had half-expected the rest of him to be bone, too.
Instead what she saw were grey eyes set in a proud face. Skin that was tanned, that must have known the sun once, that must have known warmth. He stared at her a moment. And then the Ankou inclined his head. "Myrna."
Suddenly, unbidden, a smile tugged at Myrna's face. "Good. Take care, then. I hope to see you again."
She turned away first, back to the edge of the clearing, where the cat was sunning himself on a broken tree stump. He watched, unperturbed, as Myrna made her way back to him. When she glanced back behind her, she was not surprised to find the Ankou had gone.
"Well then, little moon cat," Myrna said, digging through her pockets to make sure she had not lost the day's herbs when she went running through the woods. "Shall we?"
