On Fallen Wings (27 page)

I nodded, unsure of what life lesson she was about to share. This was the kind of thing she loved doing at Fae gatherings. It was okay when I expected it, and I often enjoyed her stories. I had no idea that she was always like this. “So, from darkness, a day comes forth. Only we cannot know its glory until it arrives?” I told her, hoping to avoid a lecture.

Raisa shook her head, but didn’t speak. I shifted my stance, nervously balancing my weight from one foot to the other, and waited.

“Yallom and I looked out this window every day we were married,” said Raisa. “And I’ve continued to look every day since he died.” She turned to look at me. “I open the curtains the same way and sit here in my chair, in the same spot, every day.”

“I don’t understand.”

Raisa revealed a cautious smile, sending me the message that this wasn’t merely a story. “And I still miss him.”

I stopped breathing.

“After Yallom died, I thought the world was lost from me. I said goodbye to the day in this room. I closed the curtains and dreamt about him, seeking his return.” She paused, and I wiped my eyes. “Then every morning, I returned to this room and opened the curtains.”

“I don’t—”

“Hush, child.” Raisa interrupted me. “He never came home. I allowed my dreams to turn to despair.” Her voice shook. “I was so distraught that I forced myself to forget.”

I gasped. “You forgot him?”

“For thirty years, he was all I had known and loved. We had been together most of my life. I couldn’t imagine living without him. After he was gone, the pain was so awful that I chose to leave him out of my memories.” Raisa stood and hobbled toward the window. “My indifference made me sad.” She turned to me. “And crazy. I tried many times to fall asleep and welcome death,” she said. “That’s when your mother came to care for me. Every morning after that, nature reminded me that it wasn’t my turn. She wouldn’t accept me. I wasn’t ready.”

“Not ready?” I asked confused.

Raisa nodded and held my hand. “I discovered I had a purpose.” She squeezed. “The day I realized that, was the day that Delucia died—the day the leaves stopped falling.”

I covered my mouth with my free hand and hid my exclamation. The story was about me.

“That’s when I was chosen.” My voice quavered. “Seven years ago. Delucia was my Giver.”

“Yes.” Raisa released my hand and returned to the window. “Every day I have looked out the window, I’ve seen something different, something unpredictable. And since the leaves in my forest stopped falling, I’ve dreamed about your future.”

I stood beside her and looked down at the wet tears trickling down her face. “What about your future?” I asked. “Don’t you dream about Yallom?”

Raisa shook her head. “No. I remember that I miss him, but I don’t dream of him anymore.”

I wasn’t expecting this. Her words pierced me.
What did she know?
I couldn’t tell her Cael’s plan. I couldn’t break her heart—she expected too much of me. Nevertheless, I needed her help.

“Raisa,” I asked, “do you think the Fae Scrolls are safe in the temple?”

“I do.”

“I’ve heard talk,” I said, “that someone may try to take them.”

“Why is this connected to your missing fiancé?” asked Raisa sharply. Her words echoed off the walls. “What knowledge do you have that the Elders do not?”

I took a deep breath and rubbed my necklace. “I’m bound by a promise. I cannot tell you.”

Under Raisa’s sudden glare, I was a mouse trembling before a hawk. “Then why have you come for
my
help?” she demanded.

“I want you to protect the scrolls. Tell the Elders to post a guard. Move them. Hide them. Do anything you can.”

“The scrolls are safe. You’ve seen them. You know they are protected.”

My hands started shaking again. “I can’t be certain,” I told her. “I can’t—” I ran out of ideas.

“Why do you doubt yourself?” she asked. “You know what to do if you fear for them.”

“I’m bound by a promise,” I said, crying again. “I can’t break a vow.”

“No you can’t. If you serve—”

“Sean’s life depends on it,” I said, interrupting her.

Raisa froze and was silent for so long that I was finally compelled to speak again.

I wiped my eyes. “I don’t know what to do. Will you please, please protect the scrolls? And Sean?” I stared down at her, pleading with my eyes. “And me?”

Raisa looked at me for a moment. She stood and returned to the window, staring outside while I struggled to compose myself. I wiped my face, still caught by small waves of emotion.

“The scrolls are safe,” she repeated. She turned to me, tears streaming down her own cheeks. “We mustn’t attempt to control everything. Sometimes it is best to allow the actions of others to decide our own. Trust yourself to do the right thing. Search inside for the answer, for you know more than I.” She turned back to the window and placed one frail hand on the pane. “Every day, I come to this window. Every day, I see something different.”

Father’s Council

The sun was still high when Madeline and I turned down the road toward our homes, though it seemed like days or years may have passed during my time with Raisa. We hadn’t spoken much during our walk, just casual talk about the season—the sort of talk two women share when they know the other has a secret. I felt strange toward her now, as if I had just attended a party that she hadn’t been invited to. I asked her if she knew why the leaves had stopped falling around Raisa’s home, but she didn’t know, so I didn’t mention it again. She had always been a good neighbor, and a better friend. I didn’t want to spoil that.

I still had many questions and they lingered in the silence of the journey. Most of all, I feared that Raisa hadn’t been concerned with my warning; the scrolls were still in danger.

When we reached our little corner of the village, I said goodbye to Madeline with a hug and ran home. The familiar scent of hickory, leather, and tobacco greeted me inside the door. Although comfortable, it smelled dirty in comparison to Raisa’s clean residence. I wandered into the kitchen to find something to eat. While I sifted through the small barrel of green apples, a sudden feeling of awareness struck me. The house was empty.

“Mother, Father,” I yelled. “Leila, Ethan?”

“They’re out for a ride.”

Father’s deep voice from the dining room made me jump. I turned around. He sat on a thick bear fur, reclined against the wall and smoking.

“Hello, Father,” I said. “You startled me. Why didn’t you go with them?”

Father loved riding more than anyone I knew. He never missed a chance to share an afternoon with the horses. He released a thin cloud of smoke and smiled. “I stayed to watch the house. There’s been another robbery.”

I shook my head. “The bandit. Why doesn’t he go away? There’s enough trouble in the village without his bothering.”

“Tell him that when you see him,” said Father, sternly.

“Father?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”

He sucked on his pipe for a moment and stared quietly. He looked down and shook his head. “I miss my faerie daughter.”

His words tugged my breath. Father never spoke this way. He was a kind and thoughtful man, but rough, demanding, and unwilling to budge. Mother was the only person who had ever swayed him from a difficult decision.

I shined my apple with my apron and sat down on floor next to him; there wasn’t room on the rug. “I’m here, Father,” I said, resting my head on one of his broad shoulders.

“Where is the innocent girl who saw no pain?” He blew a long path of smoke toward the fireplace. “My daughter, Rhiannon, where is she?”

“I haven’t gone anywhere,” I said. “The last few days have been difficult, that’s all.”

He patted my hair and shook his head. “No, you’ve been gone from us for a long while,” he said. “Almost as long as the season.”

His words cut me. I didn’t know what to say, or how to respond. I cried.

“I’m sorry, Father,” I told him. “I’m trying to be happy. It’s hard.”

“The village needs your joy,” he said. “Can’t you feel it? It’s like our dreams have been pulled from the air and blown into the trees.” He squeezed me. “You’re someplace else these days, and I want you back.”

“Don’t you miss him?” I asked. “Don’t you miss Sean? Perhaps I carry the grief of Aisling. Maybe my purpose this season is to mourn the missing—my lost love.”

Father turned his head. I saw him wipe his eye, but he said nothing. Then he looked back at me.

“I miss Sean, too,” he said. “If I could do something to bring him home sooner, and restore the sparkle in your gaze, then I would. But I rely on other men.” He shifted and released me from his grip. He stood. “There’s no need to worry about what they can do until something is done.”

“Father?” I asked, looking up at him. The water in my eyes blurred my view. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell the other Elders?”

He stopped puffing and placed his pipe on the table. “What is it?”

I shifted on the floor and shook my head. “Promise me that you won’t tell anyone,” I said, staring at him with intensity. “Will you do that for me?”

“I’ll do what you ask,” he said, nodding, “if what you tell me is noble.”

Under the rafters and my father’s stare, I shared with him my secret. I released the sorrow I had carried since the day Sean had disappeared. By the dim light of the small fire, and the highlighted window at my side, I told him what Cael had told me. I allowed him to share my grief as I cried. He listened while I talked about the morning walk, about the scrolls, and about Raisa and her story. I said almost everything. I didn’t mention Cael’s stolen kiss—that was too personal, too painful. When I finished, Father sat in his chair, wiping his own eyes.

“Do you see, Father?” I whispered. “I’ve always been here. I’ve just been trapped under all of the grief.”

He nodded. “I understand your sorrow.”

“What should I do?” I said, wiping my face with the sleeve of my dress.

“You need to release me from the vow. Allow me tell the other Elders.”

“I can’t do that.”

He stood and stomped on the wood, shaking the floor. “Rhiannon, this isn’t a game. There’s more to this story than you and I know—there has to be.” He paced the room and walked to the kitchen. He opened the cupboard next to the door. “We need the Elders. They need to know what Cael told you. They need to know about the scrolls.”

“I can’t!” Tears took control and I bawled into my lap. “Isn’t there someone you can send? Someone who can cross the lake and look for Sean? I don’t want to risk his life.”

Father opened another cupboard and then slammed it shut. “Who are we gonna ask? Who would cross the lake and risk
their own life
on a rumor? If they get caught, there could be another war.”

I rose to my feet and walked to the kitchen. I retrieved Father’s goblet from the cupboard in the corner and handed it to him. “Don’t you know people?”

“People?” Father looked into his cup. “Not like that.”

“In your trading, Father—there must be men who are strong. You could pay them to rescue Sean.”

“We trade horses, Rhiannon, to farmers and wagon owners. They aren’t daring men who seek the glory of rescues or hidden quests. They have families, like ours, and responsibilities to life.” He opened the door to the ale room and pulled a short bottle from an inside shelf. “You’re asking for a warrior. Warriors don’t deal with people like us. They have no need of us.”

Father filled his goblet with ale and returned to the table, placing the bottle on top while he drank. “Rhiannon,” he said, “I should tell the Elders. If you want my help, you must allow me to tell them at council.”

I shook my head. “Please don’t.”

Father looked at his cup and then set it on the table. He walked toward me in the kitchen. “Then you need to trust Cael.”

“Father?”

He grabbed my arms and shook me as he spoke. “Convince
him
to rescue Sean. Cael is strong, and he has friends everywhere; that’s one advantage of working for Owen.” Father’s eyes were solid.

“What if he won’t do it? What about the scrolls?”

“Are they safe?”

I nodded. “But he needs them. You should have seen his eyes—I know he’s going to try.”

Father shook his head. “Don’t sacrifice what you are trying to save,” he said. “The scrolls will do the same for Morgan as they would for me.”

“Father?”

“They can’t read them,” he said. “The men who have Sean must simply want to take something precious. I don’t think they care what they can have—they want what they can take.” He glanced out the window and turned back to face me. “If you won’t trust Cael to rescue Sean, then release me of my oath. I’ll tell the other Elders.”

“No, Father,” I said. “Like you said, I won’t sacrifice what I’m trying to save.”

Father moaned. “I’m bound by you, child. I cannot break my promise.” He lowered his head. “And I cannot help you.”