Bane and Balm: A Fae Tale of Eile
Part One
By Jenna Elizabeth Johnson, Coastal Dunes Branch
(This teaser is part one of an excerpt from Bane and Balm that just came out on February 12th in the ONCE UPON A QUEST anthology.)
Claire stood on the edge of the small cottage’s property line and stared at the gathering pool below the brook. Strands of her deep auburn hair tugged free of the hood she had pulled over her head, only to stream before her like ribbons on Beltane. She dropped the bucket she’d brought from the house and stepped forward, her thin shoes sinking into the saturated ground.
“I don’t understand,” she muttered under her breath. A few, nearby sheep bleated lazily, but did not bother to look up from their meal. “It was full yesterday.”
The pool was only half-full, the tributary feeding it nothing more than a trickle. Worrying her lower lip, Claire followed the stream with her eyes up the steep hillside until it disappeared into Dorcha Forest. The cottage she and her aunt shared rested between the valley floor and those trees, and many in the village believed the wood to be haunted by dark magic. The water from the creek was the only thing to ease Aunt Ethne’s suffering from a mysterious wasting illness, and now it seemed the water had stopped flowing.
“Might just be a temporary thing,” she muttered to a black sheep mowing grass beside her. “Let’s wait it out a few days. I’ve got some extra water stored in the barrel in the back.”
Claire stepped back, kicking the mud from her shoes before turning and heading downhill toward the cottage.
* * *
Despite Claire’s high hopes, however, the thin trickle of water only grew narrower by week’s end.
“The stream has all but dried up,” she said morosely as she stepped into the cottage late one afternoon.
Aunt Ethne struggled to sit up in her small bed against the far wall. The fire Claire had built that morning before escaping outdoors still burned cheerfully, but she added a few more logs anyway.
“Winter is still weeks away, so a freeze cannot be the reason,” she mused as she sorted through some wild nuts she’d gathered earlier.
“You have managed to store a good lot of it,” her aunt commented, her voice dry and weak.
Claire paused in her chore, her shoulders drooping.
“Only one barrelful, Aunt. Had I known the stream would stop flowing, I would have filled three more barrels. I was counting on another month of good weather to get that task done, and now, the pond is nearly drained as well.”
Claire turned worried eyes onto her aunt, but to her surprise the older Lorehnin woman did not look the least bit perturbed.
“Does this not worry you?” Claire wondered aloud.
Aunt Ethne merely shook her head. “You will find a way, my dear. You always do.”
Claire sighed, wondering if this time her clever mind wouldn’t be able to solve the problem. Something was holding up the stream, she was almost certain of it. If only she could figure out what. But the only way to do so would be to follow it to its source.
Claire suddenly straightened in her chair, causing her aunt to chuckle.
“What is going through that tireless mind of yours, child?”
“What if I travel into Dorcha Forest and find out what’s blocking the stream?”
Ethne grew still, the humor on her face fading a little.
“Dorcha Forest is no place for a young woman,” she stated.
Look for Part II in the April edition of socalwritersshowcase.com.
Read more about Jenna Elizabeth Johnson on her blog/website
Jenna Elizabeth Johnson, jennaelizabethjohnson.com.