» 08 – The Witch «

MARCHLANDS. WÙDĂO VILLAGE.

Leaving the offcomers at a Wùdăo guest house, Meilin takes a short diversion that is not at all a way of procrastinating talking with her mother.

Heading sideways across the village, the smell of open-air cooking only grows stronger as she steps into a market street. Dodging crackling flames and afternoon crowds, she’s still slowed by having to give respectful nods to the elderly men and women who stop her to say hello. Eventually, she reaches Shuang’s market stall, laden with fruit and other exotics he imports from fields and orchids from the Marches to the south.

Shuang himself is a well-built man, at least a decade older than Meilin and seemingly perpetually tanned from a job that keeps him outside whenever he’s not asleep.

“Well, well, well,” he says. “Someone’s been the talk of the town.”

“Ugh, don’t start,” she says, and he laughs the deep laugh she’ll always associate with him.

“Gotta keep my ear to the ground, ‘lil sis. You don’t tell me when you’re in trouble.”

“I’m not in trouble!”

“You fought off barrow geists to save some offcomers!” Shuang raises an eyebrow. “What do you call that?”

“Fought off is—” She shakes her head. “Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.”

“Hmm?”

Holding her empty hands out in front of her, Meilin makes a dramatic hand movement before flicking her wrist and producing a beautiful white flower, streaked with pink—Heart’s Delight.

Shuang laughs. “You actually found one!”

She grins. “I’m a little offended you apparently had so little faith in me.”

“Clearly I was mistaken!” He takes a small vase from under the stall, and Meilin slides the flower’s stem into it. “Thank you, Mi. I owe you one.”

“So now you have to invite me to the wedding, right?” she says.

Shuang leans across the stall and hugs her. “I never wouldn’t have. But he has to say yes first! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Meilin grins again cheekily. “Kenn would be crazy to say no.”

They release their hug, and her eyes flicker up towards where the village crests. “I better get going though. I need to speak with my Mother.”

“Wouldn’t want to keep her waiting then.” As she goes to leave, Shuang tosses her a red apple. “Good luck! Backbone, remember?”

She gives him a leery look, then weaves back between buildings until she finds the main path up to the village's—her mother's—shrine. It's a nervous climb, despite her munching on the sweet apple, one that leaves Meilin alone too long with her thoughts.

The first Hero in five years.

She scarcely remembers what it was like the last time there was a Hero—and now she had met three Titled in one day. One could say that this might all be the work of the Fortunes, some spirit or magic guiding her to them. Perhaps it had, if only to give her a small part to play in a grander tapestry. Now she’d see them to the gateway at Wù-Pailou, and that would be it. She’d hear of their exploits perhaps, but life would go on.

For the best too, she tells herself.

No reliable story spoke favourably of involving oneself in the affairs of offcomers. Of course, she had read the pulps, the adventures scribes wrote of, but those were embellishments and fictions. This was reality.

And as kind as Ewan seemed, and as genuine as the Hero hopefully was, Meilin had also seen the enchanted blade the Guide had wielded. Creating a blade had nothing to do with her Title, which means she must have summoned it with Charter magic. A boon perhaps, from a Marcher Lord? There was no answer that made her seem any more trustworthy. Meilin wonders if she's being too harsh, but growing up in free-land had done little to endear her to those who claimed authority under the Charter—or their agents.

Head down, Meilin is only jolted from her thoughts when she almost bumps into her half-brother as he stands outside the shrine, apparently waiting for her.

"Mother wants to speak with you.”

"I know, why do you think I'm here?"

She snaps at him, even if she doesn’t mean to. She doesn’t like being on the outs with her brother. If only he’d apologise first, she’d be willing to apologise too.

“Listen, Mei…” His hands fumble with the hilt of his sheathed dao strapped to his side. “You bringing them here… Everything is going to be different now.”

“Are you blaming me for that?” she asks. “For not buying Wùdăo more time?”

“No, I…” He shakes his head. “I better be off. We’re sending up warning lights, letting the nearby villages know to be careful tonight.”

“I’ll let you get back to it, then.”

Lei nods, and after a moment’s hesitation, disappears back down the path. Meilin looks further up the path and steels herself for whatever’s to come.

The rich smells of the shrine, the burning incense, will always remind Meilin of home, of the thousand flames she lit in her youth as a shrine maiden. Back then, her mother was the centre of her world, and she truly believed in a benevolence behind her every action. Now, as her mother waits for her, the older woman’s expression is inscrutable. Meilin had always thought that one day she’d finally understand what her mother hid behind those eyes. These days, she had long given up any hope of that.

“Teacher.”

Her mother accepts her gesture of respect. “Please, speak your mind, Meilin.”

“You volunteered my services to guide them to the gateway in Wù-Pailou.”

She nods. “Consider it a compliment towards your skill as a ranger.”

“You didn’t think to ask first?" Meilin asks. “I would have done it either way.”

“I wanted to save the second part of my instructions until we were alone.”

Meilin crosses her arms. “And what are those?”

“I wish for you to accompany the offcomers back to Earth, to live amongst them in New Albion. We’re approaching a dangerous time, and it would be good for there to be Marchlanders in other worlds again.”

Meilin blinks, unsure what to say. As she tries to wrap her mind around a response, the sun sets low enough to steal back its glow from the jade dragon at the shrine’s centre.

Finally, she manages: “Excuse me?”

“You understood what I said just fine, my dear.”

“Oh, I understood it; I just can’t believe we’re finally here. You finally found an excuse to get rid of me—after all those Lords turned down your petitions to take me off your hands.” Meilin’s eyes are as hard as flint. “Don’t think I didn’t know that you tried.”

“This isn’t a banishment, Meilin,” her mother replies evenly. “But I would consider it unwise for you to bring up your failures when you’re trying to reason with me as to why you should stay.”

“My failures?” Meilin spits the words. “Am I still that much of an embarrassment to you, for not following in your footsteps?”

“You’re not a failure, Meilin. Just a disappointment.”

“A disappointment?” she echoes back.

She had dreamt of this fight, of the two of them finally speaking plainly, but now it was happening Meilin just feels sick in the pit of her stomach.

“It would have been one thing for you to have simply not been up to the task,” her mother returns quietly. “But you chose not to succeed. You ran about the village and moors like you were some Sevari swashbuckler, you neglected your studies to chase the affections of young rakes, you use what little magic you do have on frivolities like dying your hair—”

“You know why I dye my hair!” Meilin realises she’s yelling and quietens.

Her mother simply watches her, eyes lost in shadow except for a glint of gold.

“You’ve never been able to stop treating me like I’m a child.” Meilin stands. “You can’t order me about. You don’t run this village, as much as people bow and scrape at your feet. I’m not letting you exile me from my home, my world.”

She’s turning to leave when her mother finally replies. “If you will not listen to me, then I shall be entering you into a wardship under Lady Winters.”

Meilin is struck dumb. “You—you can’t do that! I’m of age!”

“A parent can of any child below the age of twenty-one, with the explicit consent of a member of the cunning folk.” Her mother’s eyes are hard. “And I give my consent.”

“Mother, please—” Meilin’s world spins, her heart races. “You can’t—”

“If only you were among the cunning folk yourself. Then I would have no power over you.”

Meilin’s mother had never hit her before, but she knew now what the sensation would feel like. She stares at the woman who raised her, hollow-eyed. Suddenly, she has no interest in staying.

As she stalks out of the hut, she can’t help but wonder if her mother hadn’t chosen her words precisely to force this outcome. The greatest tool of the cunning folk isn’t magic, but their tongue, her Mother had always said.

And there was few of greater cunning than her.

~***~