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It was midsummer, the day before Caduceus' initiation into the priesthood of the Blooming Grove, and his sister Calla could not have been more proud of him. He was hanging lanterns in the altar-tree in preparation when she went to tell him so.
“Hey Caddy,” she said, and knocked one of the lanterns down with her staff. He frowned at her.
"When I'm a full cleric, will you finally stop calling me dumb nicknames?.”
“Probably not,” she teased, but quickly raised her hands in surrender. “All right, sorry. Caduceus. Anyway, I wanted to tell you congratulations. You’ve done really well.”
Caduceus picked up the lantern she had hit and slowly raised it back to its place in the branches. “Thank you.” He picked up another lantern and turned it over in his hands.
“I mean it. Your tea patches are doing fantastic, that was such a good idea. And did Dad talk to you after you did that last funeral?”
Caduceus shook his head.
“Well, he told me he had never given a better ceremony himself. You’re going to be a great cleric.”
“Thanks.” He still held the last lantern. He seemed absorbed in the designs, running his fingers over the thick paper, tracing the patterns of leaves and vines.
Hmm. Calla adjusted her stance, shifting her viewpoint to get a better look at her brother’s eyes. As she thought, he was looking past the lantern in his hands to stare, somewhat unfocused, at the altar stone beneath the tree. It was a broad, flat, naturally-occurring stone, about knee-high and almost covered in moss, lichen, and shelves of dry fungus. Any important ceremonies that needed to be done out of doors were performed here - and that included initiations. Calla could tell just what he was thinking. She sat down on the stone and patted the space next to her.
“Nervous about tomorrow?”
Caduceus hesitated, then sat beside her. “Yes.”
“Nothing wrong with that. I was terrified before my initiation.”
Caduceus muttered something.
Calla flicked an ear. “What was that?”
“I said, yeah right.”
“No, really. The whole week before, I was so scared, I would cry at the drop of a hat. It was so embarrassing.”
“You still did it, though.”
“Yeah.”
“And that’s when you got your gray eye.”
“Yep. Lots of other good things too. You’ll be able to start using magic, so that’s pretty cool.” Her left eye was the deep brown she was born with, but her right was a pale cloudy gray. Mostly it was just a reminder of the Wildmother’s touch, but sometimes it could see a little beyond the physical world. Right now both eyes were on her brother, and all they saw was that he was still uneasy.
Caduceus worried at the lantern in his hands. It was beginning to be quite bent out of shape. Damn it. Calla probably should have talked to him sooner, the poor kid needed the encouragement. She was his closest sibling, in affection as well as age, but sometimes she forgot just how young he was. He had never even left the Grove. Any change at all was going to be pretty hard on him, much less a major life decision like dedicating your life to a goddess.
“And it’s so stupid! I know there’s no reason to be afraid,” he said.
“Eh, I wouldn’t really say that, ” she began, “but -” There was a ripping noise as Caduceus’ hand tore through the paper lantern. She winced. “Aw shit, Caddy. That’s not what I meant. I mean, it is, but - ugh. Look,” she said.
Caduceus looked her in the eyes for the first time in the conversation. He looked scared. Gods, Mom’s “The Talk” really hadn’t done anything for him, had it? Probably forty minutes about “the hand of the Wildmother” and “empathy for all creatures” and one sentence on what to actually expect. And now Calla had to do it, and her relationship with Caddy was mostly based on inside jokes and light bullying, and he was twenty times better than her at the whole insight and comfort thing, anyway, and that without even being an initiate.
Oh well. If he needed her to, she would.
“Hey, you know you don’t have to, right? If this isn’t what you want.” She tried to look gentle. “It’s not for everyone, and there are lots of ways to serve the Wildmother. Look at Clarabelle.”
“I don’t want to be a druid, though,” said Caduceus. “And I don’t want to go off questing. I do want to be a cleric, and stay here and look after the Grove. I… I think that’s what I’m meant for.”
“Well, you’re certainly good at it,” Calla admitted. “But are you sure that’s what you want, not just what Dad wants for you?”
“Yes. I know it is. I know he wants me to take over the graveyard eventually, but that’s what I want too! That’s what I’ve always wanted. And just because I’m nervous doesn’t mean I’m just going to back out!” He glared at her defiantly now, as if daring her to try to dissuade him again.
Calla held up her hands. “That’s great, man, I'm not trying to convince you not to do it. I came over in the first place to tell you I was really proud of you.” She smiled. “Oops, oh no, now it’s out there in the open, I’ve shown emotional vulnerability by admitting I think you’re an incredible person and I’m super proud of you, how will I ever live this down, oh no…..”
Caduceus chuckled and looked back down at his hands. “Thanks, Calla.”
“And give me that,” she said, and yanked the now quite mangled lantern away from him. She placed her thumb on it and exhaled. The wire straightened out, the paper uncrumpled and fused back together, and she handed it back. “There. Good as new." She had crafted the lanterns herself, and it was always easier to Mend something your own hands had made.
"I mean it, though," she continued. "I'm proud of you. Not just for your skills, for your decision too. It's not an easy one to make, but I believe in you. And I want you to know I'm right here if you have questions or need to talk..." Caduceus was blushing. Aw hells, now she was making him uncomfortable again. She felt like an old married aunt giving a virgin the sex talk on his wedding day. How was she so bad at this, when giving comfort and advice came to the rest of her family as naturally as breathing? "Okay, that's enough emotional vulnerability in the air. Come on." She stood up and laced her fingers together, offering a boost. "Get that lantern up there, I know you're too short and scrawny to reach all the way to that branch by yourself."
Caduceus rolled his eyes, but stepped up and together they hung the last lantern high in the tree.
That night Calla had trouble sleeping. Unlike Caddy's nervousness, hers really was baseless. It wasn't her initiation, and her role in the ceremony was purely moral support - Mom and Dad would be doing all the parts that actually required skill and a strong connection to the Wildmother. Still...
She disentangled her legs from Columbine's and stepped over Colton's snoring body, then left the bedroom, careful to ease the door open just right so it wouldn't creak. The temple of the Blooming Grove was all one building, with her family's living space on the second floor and the first being mostly dedicated to the small chapel and the mortuary. This made it easy for Calla to sit on the staircase and peer through the railings into the chapel, where Caduceus was keeping his vigil.
He was kneeling on the floor with his back to her. His pale blond hair looked silvery in the moonlight, and he was so small. Her baby brother. Calla felt a rush of affection for him. She teased him for being scrawny and slow and a scaredy-cat, but really he had come so far. He was born late and unexpected to their family, and had always been sickly. It had taken him years to start talking, and even more years before he understood anything that was happening, ever. Calla was suddenly flooded by a memory of the time Caduceus had locked himself in the mortuary, and she had to put her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. He had sat in there for an entire day, perfectly quiet and resisting every attempt to scry him. By the time they actually found him, Dad had been convinced he had somehow wandered into the forest and been killed. But no, he just liked it in there and didn't understand that his family was looking for him. But now, he'd been growing for thirty - forty? - years, and he was blooming. Calla thought it wouldn't be too long before he understood more about life and death than any of them.
She heard Caduceus' rumbling voice - he was praying out loud. Awwww. Would it be invading my brother's privacy to listen in? Almost certainly yes, she thought as she swiveled her ears to catch his words.
"Mother, I think I'm ready. I hope I'm ready. Actually, I don't know if I'm ready or not. But I want to be. I know I've asked for a lot of things in the past few days, so I'm not going to ask for anything right now. I'm just telling you that I want to be ready. Whatever it is you want for me, I want that too. I think I know the path you're putting me on, but if it turns out to be not the path I thought it was, I'll stay on it. I'll keep walking. Anyways, I'm happy to be starting my life in your service, whether I'm ready or not, and whatever that's going to look like. So thanks for the chance to do that. And thank you for Calla, who said some really nice things to me today. And actually, I know I just said I wasn't going to ask for anything, but she looked like she was a little nervous about something too and I don't know what, so could you please help her out with whatever that is. Thanks."
Oh gods. Oh fuck, Calla thought. Her eyes were watering. He's so cute. I can't handle it. My baby brother. I'm so damn proud of him. She rubbed her eyes.
She blinked. Huh?
She rubbed her eyes again.
Calla saw two versions of Caduceus: one praying in the moonlight, one fallen forward, and bloodied. Slowly, hesitantly, she closed her brown eye, and the moonlight and the chapel disappeared. She saw her brother lying on the ground, in the dark, somewhere she didn't recognize. He had a long slash across his chest and was bleeding into the dirt. Calla turned her head, trying to get another view, but the vision stayed the same no matter where she looked. She leaned forward, willing the image to move closer. Was he breathing? She couldn't tell.
And then it shifted. She was looking at the dark, ashy trees of the cursed wood that surrounded her home. A silent wind moved in their leaves, and as she watched, a purple thorn-vine sprouted from between the roots. It grew at a fantastic pace, reaching toward her like an outstretched hand.
Again, a new scene. A wolf with bony spikes jutting from its shoulders gnawed and tore at the fence around the Grove. A burst of light engulfed it and it fell back, snarling without sound. The vision followed the light and Calla saw a figure step from the entrance of the temple. It was Caduceus, but he was older, and he had dyed his hair pink. How odd. He looked almost emaciated, like he had just been stretched instead of properly growing. He leaned wearily on an unfamiliar staff.
Calla blinked, and the vision was gone. Her hand was pressed to her mouth and there were tears on her face. Both eyes saw only the chapel around her. What had happened? She had never experienced anything like that before. Her gray eye helped her see ghosts and sometimes a bit of the ethereal plane, not - the future! Because that's what it is, isn't it? The only explanation.
She tiptoed back up the stairs as quietly as possible, hoping Caduceus was too absorbed in his meditation to notice her. The future… and decades into the future at least, by how old he had appeared in the visions. Even the first vision, she realized, now that the shock of seeing her brother bleeding (or dead , she thought) was wearing off, had shown a fully-grown Caduceus. So whatever darkness was coming wasn’t going to happen tomorrow. Maybe, if she had the time to prevent it, wasn’t going to happen at all.
Calla cracked open the bedroom door and slid back inside. She sat on the edge of the mat, careful to avoid the pile of sleeping siblings, and began to meditate. Is Caduceus in danger? What can I do to prevent it? Why did you show me those things?
It would work better with incense, of course, but she didn’t have any, and she knew Camelia had used all of the communal stash last week to ask if any of the Guiatao boys had a crush on her. Oh well. The Wildmother had already given her plenty to work with, and she really just needed to clear her head and figure out what it all meant…
Calla woke up with sunlight in her eyes and a clear conviction in her heart. If the blight on the Salvierwood was only going to get worse, if Caduceus was going to be left to defend the Grove alone, if he would be in terrible danger - there was only one thing to do. She would have to go searching for a way to end the curse, like Clarabelle and Clemence had. She would have to leave her home.
The door opened and Caduceus’ head poked in. “Do you want any breakfast? I made omelets and everybody else already ate.”
Calla stretched. “Thanks, Caddy. Today’s your initiation though, aren’t you fasting?”
“Yeah?”
“And you still made breakfast for everyone?”
“Yeah?”
Calla smiled, but felt a twinge of heartache. I’m really going to miss him . “Sure, I’ll eat. You’re the best.”
They sat down in the kitchen together, and Caduceus fidgeted with an empty mug while Calla ate. He looked pale, probably from the combination of keeping a vigil all night and fasting. Or… maybe not just that. Calla forced her mind away from the mysterious future. Caduceus needed her now, too.
“Are you still worried about your initiation?”
Caduceus flipped the mug upside down and spun it along the table. “Just a little.”
“You don’t remember mine, do you?” He shook his head. “Okay, it’s totally normal to be nervous about something you’ve never seen. But including mine, I’ve been to five initiations. Everyone except Clarabelle. And you know what? It’s turned out fine every single time. No one was rejected, no one didn’t come back, no one even forgot what to say.”
Caduceus looked mildly alarmed. “Do you have to say anything other than yes?”
“No!” Calla laughed. “Just ‘yes’ every time Mom asks you a question. See, you’re all set.”
“Oh, good.” He set the mug down and looked at her. “Still, do you have any, I don’t know, tips? Advice?”
“Just trust the Wildmother, and trust Dad. They’ll get you through it all right. And you know what? Maybe what you really need is to just not worry so much about being nervous. A little fear is good - it'll speed up your heartbeat, keep your blood moving.”
Caduceus blinked at her. “Is that supposed to be reassuring?”
“Gods, it really was,” she sighed. “I’m awful at this, why didn’t you ask Colton for advice?”
“Because he thinks I’m an idiot.”
“Well, you’re not. And you’ll be fine. Like you said yesterday, you want this. I know you’re ready.” Would a forehead kiss be too weird right now? Yeah, probably. She gave him a pat on the back. “You’re going to be great. And thanks for the omelet, it was amazing.”
Then she went outside to meditate for just a few more minutes. She wanted to prepare Healing Word, just in case.
It was dusk, and the lanterns were lit in the altar tree. In the grass around the Grove, fireflies blinked, and the crickets and night peepers were just starting to sing. The Clay family gathered around the altar, each sibling holding a lantern.
Caduceus stepped forward to kneel at the foot of the altar, and his parents stood to either side of him, in full ceremonial robes. Mother carried a stone knife and a staff taller than she was. She wore a headdress made of bones and living moss, stark and vibrant, that seemed to communicate an almost unbearably strange but beautiful power. She looked magnificent. Caduceus wore an initiate’s simple white tunic, and looked slightly dizzy.
Calla smiled at him, filled with the kind of affection that is almost pity. She was so proud of him, and truly believed that he would be a great cleric. But now she second-guessed her own decision. Was it really right to leave her family? She glanced at the two empty places in the circle, left for Clarabelle and Clemence. Caduceus had looked up to Clemence so much as a child, and was heartbroken when they left to seek a cure for their wood. Now Calla was the only sibling still home that he was close to, and if she left - could she do that to her little brother?
Mother raised her staff and struck the ground. The ceremony had begun.
“Caduceus Clay, you kneel before the Wildmother and before her priests to dedicate your life to her service. This calling promises great gifts, and requires great sacrifice. You will walk with death every day, and must not fear it, but respect it, and understand the place of both life and death in nature’s great cycle.” Her voice rang out to fill the entire Grove as she spoke the traditional words. Caduceus kept his head bowed in appropriate humility, but his eyes were wide and looking up.
“Caduceus, are you willing to devote your life to the Wildmother’s service, to heed her guidance and follow her path?”
He nodded. “Yes.” Calla smiled. No danger of forgetting his part here.
“Will you use your gifts to protect life where you can, and where you cannot, to ease the dying and to comfort those who mourn?”
“Yes.”
“Will you seek to return all flesh to the earth, from which it came, and to live in harmony with the natural world?”
“Yes.” Calla thought her brother’s voice was getting stronger and more sure with each word. Around them, the night creatures had hushed, the leaves of the altar-tree were still. All his family and the whole Grove waited, breathless.
“Above all, will you always respect and preserve the balance between life and death?”
“I will,” Caduceus vowed.
Mother lifted her knife and struck the ground with her staff, and it shook with a rumble like far-off thunder. “We serve the grave, we do not fear it.”
Caduceus’ ears were pressed flat to his skull, but he lifted his head proudly and proclaimed in a chorus with his siblings: “we serve the grave, we do not fear it.” Calla felt tears start to well in her eyes.
Their mother stepped forward and pressed the knife to her son’s throat, and cut.
A second of absolute stillness, and then Caduceus fell forward, blood streaming from his wound onto the altar. He gasped weakly as his blood soaked into the moss, and Calla winced, remembering the icy pain of air sucking into her own cut throat. In seconds, the colorful plants and fungus covering the altar were dyed red.
Caduceus choked, and then fell silent, still draped over the altar. Tears streamed down Calla’s face, but she didn’t try to stop them. Grief is as natural as life and death. As natural as joy.
Her father leaned forward, but Mother held up a hand. She reached down and touched Caduceus’ shoulder with two fingers, and from her touch spread a wave of life. Fragile white mushrooms, a vibrant yellow lichen, a dozen kinds of tiny furry living things spread like sunlight across the altar and through Caduceus’ fur and splayed-out hair, covering and consuming the blood until there was no trace of it.
Silently, Father stepped forward and scattered a handful of small diamonds mixed with flower petals and myrrh on the altar. He placed a hand on Caduceus’ head and closed his eyes. A moment later his eyes snapped open, glowing with a fierce golden light. Then his hand began to shine, and the diamonds, and then the whole altar, too bright to look at and so, so beautiful. Calla wept openly, her tears turning her entire world into glittering diamonds.
The light faded and Calla blinked until she could see again. She saw her brother lie still on the altar, then stir, and raise his head. Their mother smiled broadly and took him by the hand, breaking the silence with a ringing voice:
“Rise, Caduceus Clay, cleric of Melora, and priest of the Blooming Grove.”
She pulled him to his feet and into an embrace. The atmosphere of mystery and power had lifted, and the family murmured happily to each other as they left their lanterns on the altar and crowded around Caduceus, smiling and hugging and patting him on the back.
Calla hung back, absently wiping the tears out of her fur. She watched her family huddle together and thought about how much she loved them all and how much she was going to miss them. If I could just freeze this moment in time, she thought, and live it forever... But I can't. So the question is, how far am I willing to go to protect my family's happiness, even if it's without me? As she watched, the group hug broke up and they all started to drift toward the temple, and she knew the answer. As far as it takes.
Caduceus stumbled on a root and Calla shook her head. It was traditional to let the initiate heal naturally, but if this skinny boy didn't get at least a little more blood back he was going to pass out climbing the stairs. She called out the word she always used to heal - her loved one's name.
"Caduceus!" He turned back to answer, and she saw his wound scab over a little more, and some color come back to his face. "Congratulations," she said. "You okay?"
"Thanks. Yeah. Yeah, I'm good." He still looked a little dazed but was smiling. "You were right. I was ready. I am."
"Damn straight. You're a cleric now." She brushed a bit of pink lichen out of his hair. It grew back immediately. Hmm. "It looks like you brought a little something back with you." She pointed to his tunic. The same kind of lichen clung to the fabric and along his collarbones. "That's nice, it's a good sign."
"Oh, wow," Caduceus said, inspecting it. "That is nice."
"It might come with something extra, too. Like my ghost eye."
Caduceus thought. "I have an idea. Let me try something." He crouched down and scooped up a handful of dirt and leaf litter. He focused, and in a moment the leaves withered and crumbled into a rich dark soil. Tiny green sprouts shot up, and a single pale mushroom unfurled like an umbrella. He looked up, delighted.
"Wow, Caduceus, Mom's decomposition spell! Not everyone can do that."
"I like it. It feels good, feels right."
"It is right. It's special." said Calla. "I have a feeling you're going to be the best grave cleric this place has ever seen."
A few weeks later, and Calla was almost done preparing for her journey. Not that she would take much with her, but she needed appropriate things to leave behind. She had spent most of her preparation time making gifts for her siblings. A new censer for Colton, charged crystals for the twins, and for Caduceus, something unique.
She was sitting under a tree just finishing Caduceus' gift when she saw him walking to the garden with an empty basket and shouted him over. "Caduceus!"
"Hmm?" He ambled over to the tree. In the weeks since his initiation, the lichen had spread, and now his hair was stained pink almost to the tips. He looked older, too, almost like the Caduceus she had seen in her vision. It was getting harder to think of him as her baby brother.
"I have something for you," she said, and held up her work: a breastplate, made with thousands of tiny beetle wings, glittering green in the sunlight. The matching greaves and pauldrons lay on the ground beside her.
"You made this?" He sat down beside her and picked up one of the pauldrons. "For me?"
"Yeah, for you," she laughed.
"It's so beautiful, thank you." He tapped it with a fingernail and it rang musically, like metal. "But what do I need armor for?"
"To be honest, I don't really know," she admitted. "But I think you will. The day of your initiation, the Wildmother sent me... visions." She touched her gray eye. "Little ones, just flashes of the future, or a possible future. But I think the corruption in the wood is getting worse, and I think I have to find a way to stop it." She thought of the first vision, of her brother wounded and bleeding. Hmph. Not if I have anything to say about it. She dumped the rest of the armor into his lap. "And you'll need something to keep you safe while I do."
"Find a way... like Clemence and Clarabelle," said Caduceus. She nodded. "So.. you're leaving?" He turned to look at her, and she had to grit her teeth against the sudden wave of emotion.
"Don't you fucking make me cry, you baby. Point those big eyes somewhere else." That got a small smile from Caduceus, and he looked back at the armor. "You're an adult, and a full cleric, and you know I've never been the best at keeping the Grove, or at funerals, or anything our family does, really. You're twenty times better than me at all of it. You don't need me here. Maybe this is my time to find out where I am needed."
"But... I'll miss you."
Calla cleared her throat so it wouldn't sound like she was about to cry. "Yeah. Me too."
“But you'll Send to me sometimes, right?”
“Of course. Every day, if I can.” Damn it, she did sound like she was about to cry. “Come here.” She pulled him into a hug. “When you wear the armor, just think of me protecting you. And be safe.”
“I will,” he said. “But I don't think I'm going to do anything too dangerous.”
On a whim, she closed her brown eye, just to see if the Wildmother had one last message to show her. And she saw something. Just a flash, short enough that she wasn't entirely sure she hadn't imagined it. She saw Caduceus, older, and wearing the armor she had made. He had his arms stretched out and a divine radiance surrounded his body. He looked like a force of nature. He looked magnificent.
“Caduceus,” she said, “I think you're going to change the world.”