At last she said, “You make me broody, you do, for a girl—a girl of my own. A man-child takes no interest in woman wisdom. Who will learn my recipes as I learned from my mother?”
I glanced at the bulgy bags of roots and things that hung from her ceiling. I could think of no answer. Who would come here, day after day, into the deep, greeny gloom of the wood to learn her dark recipes?
At last I said, half whispering, “Do you know him, too?”
She nodded. “We all know Lord Death. Do I see him as you do? No. But it is closeness to him that imbues my stuffs with power. What is a love potion without the breath of him upon it? How can I make a healing draught without sensing from which direction he comes? One day you will understand, Keturah, that he infuses the very air we breathe with magic.”
As she spoke, I thought I saw his face in the fire, his eyes hot as embers, losing all patience with me if I were to ask for the life of her baby giant.
“I have no power over Lord Death,” I said weakly. “I see him, but he has no regard for my wishes.”
“He will not live the night,” Soor Lily said, glancing toward the bedroom where her son lay.
“Nor perhaps shall I,” I said. “But—but I will see what I can do.”
She nodded. There were tears in her eyes.
“So I will have my charm,” I said.
She nodded again. “For you,” she said, “my most powerful magic.”
She stood up and stared into her kitchen, bracing herself on the back of the chair. She looked as if she were going to have to commit some foul deed against her will, so white was she, yet resolute.
“First the distillate,” she said. She went to her cupboard and removed a small vial with only her thumb and forefinger. Her lip curled in distaste. Carefully she put three drops in a small bowl and stepped away from it. She said, “This will be a pure love, a pure and ...” She looked at me and stopped speaking.
“It needn’t be fancy,” I said, glad now that she had begun. “One true love,” I said, “preferably one who will give me a little house of my own to clean, and a wee fine baby too.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, “nothing fancy. It’s bad enough without making it fancy. Second, the infusion.”
She took a small bottle from beneath a bag of cabbages. She poured the contents into the bowl with the other liquid and swirled it around and around, then gazed into the bowl as if she could see an unpleasant future at the bottom.
“Ahh,” she said, almost sadly. “This will be a deep love, deep as ...” She glanced at me and fell silent.
“Deep?” I said, almost smiling now. “Of course, deep— can you make a charm strong enough to find such a love?”
“I am an artist,” she said firmly.
She dug into an opened trunk and rummaged. She took out a half-filled jar.
“Third, the decoction!” she said. Her head shook as if she regretted finding it. She struggled to her feet, grunting, and carefully poured a little in. A thread of smoke floated out of the bowl. “Oh,” she murmured. “Oh, lass, ‘tis a passionate love you will have.”
“Aren’t you almost done?” I asked. My courage was beginning to fail me.
“This will be the best love charm I have ever made,” she said.
From her apron pocket she drew a small, glistening thing. She plopped it unceremoniously into the bowl.
“What is that?” I asked in horror, though I suspected I knew the answer.
“The charm,” she said, “so when you see your true love, you will know him.”
“It—it is an eye,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “Put it in your apron pocket. Touch it and you will feel it looking. When it grows completely still, you will have found your true love. And let me assure you, Keturah, that there is one for you. I felt it powerfully.”
I could not tell if it was gratitude or pity or the fumes of the potion on her fingers that made me love her at that moment. “Thank you, Soor Lily.”
She folded a small cloth around the eyeball and tied it with a lace ribbon. “From my wedding veil,” she said, pointing to the lace. I reached for the charm, but she pulled it back. “Tonight—you must ask him tonight.”
I nodded. “You can be sure I will see him tonight,” I said.
She handed it to me at last, and I took it from her and left as quickly as I could, somewhat relieved but dreading the price.
And now, having secured a way to find my true love, I determined to speak to John Temsland.
IV
What happens when I test the charm’s power;
I ask Cook for a lemon; an unexpected visitor;
John Temsland says, “We are doomed.”
As I walked in the village I gripped the charm and looked deep into the eyes of every man I met upon the road, just in case.
If any of them was my true love, I did not recognize him, nor did the eye. It flickered and shook in my hand like a trapped beetle. Most of the men would not look at me for long, fearful of one who had likely communed with fairies.
I picked my way around muddy ruts in what passed for the road into Tide-by-Rood, and stopped at the outskirts to consider my village.
Across the bay, the forest marched right to the banks, as if it would cross and wring our village away with its vast roots. Behind the village we kept the forest at a distance only by ax and saw. Nearest the water was the church with its blackened bell, then the half-fallen smithy and the infested mill, and then the cottages going up the hill, planted like wilting flowers in a tiered garden. At the top, where the rise leveled off and the forest began, was the manor, Lord Temsland’s great house. Once it had been grand, but now the roof needed repairing and the whole of it looked neglected. West of the manor was the apple orchard, and just beyond that, also at the edge of the forest, stood our worn little cottage, with nothing but the garden between us and the deep, wild wood.
Still, the sun shone with familiar cheer.
I could not imagine the plague on this sunny day. Hadn’t I heard how whole villages perished in a fortnight? How little ones wept in their own filth, wondering why their parents did not come to comfort or feed, not understanding that they were dead? How neighbors boarded up the homes of the stricken while those inside died of the plague or, worse, of starvation? How friend ran away from friend, lover from lover, mother from child?
Surely not, I thought, shaking my head in disbelief and horror. Surely not Tide-by-Rood! And if so, what words could I use to persuade John Temsland to do something? I continued on my way, letting my scarf fall back a little and looking boldly about as I walked. I gazed at every man and squeezed the charm, but still the charm searched and searched.
I headed toward the manor, but it seemed I was not the only one. The entire village, almost, was gathering at the manor. Gretta and Beatrice caught up with me and linked arms.
“Are you coming to cheer on the men, Keturah?” Beatrice asked, flushed and panting for breath.
“No, I am going to see John Temsland. I must speak with him.”
“John Temsland? But he will not be seeing anyone,” Gretta said.
“Today is the hunt—the hunt of the hart who lured you into the forest,” Beatrice said.
“But I would not have him hunted!” I exclaimed, remembering his royal beauty.
“You could not stop them,” Gretta said.
“But I must try.” Now my errand was doubled—not only must I tell John Temsland what Lord Death had revealed to me, but I must beg him, or his father, to call offthe hunt. As I looked for the young lord, I also clutched the charm and plunged among the gathered men, seizing the opportunity to see which of them was my true love. The eye darted, flickering back and forth in my hand until I myself was jittery and the flesh of my arm crawled. The eye settled on no one.