Mari watched the armored man limp into the cottage. He paused just inside the threshold, gaze darting over the one-room building. He looked right through her.
She, for her part, took her time in evaluating him. His armor had certainly seen better days: scuffed and rusted in places, one side of the cuirass crumpled as if struck by something large.
He held his sword drawn, though it was a sad piece of metal. It ended halfway down in a jagged edge and the leftover blade appeared pitted.
“Dragon fighting?” she asked.
The man, of course, did not answer. He dropped the bag he carried and kicked the door closed. The hinges squealed loudly. Mari winced, half-expecting the door to give up and fall over. The man must have wondered the same, as he stared at it for a long moment.
When nothing happened, the man tossed the ruined weapon onto the long table that once served as Mari’s work surface. He slowly stripped out of his armor, pausing now and again to take slow breaths. She noted that when he tried to breathe in deeply, he flinched.
“Broken rib,” Mari murmured to herself. Louder, she said, “If you’re not careful, it could break open your lung.”
The man did not respond. She knew he wouldn’t, but she liked to speak, nonetheless. She spoke to the trees and chittering birds. She spoke to the sunlight and growing herbs. Nothing ever answered, or if it did, it was a language she only barely understood. Eventually, she would learn. This was a slow process she was caught in, and the passing years had taught her patience.
Soon, the man was down to trousers and arming doublet. The doublet he began to slowly work off.
Mari looked out one of the windows not entirely taken over by ivy and bramble. A horse, stripped of saddle and bridle, stood by her well, munching on grass. A long lead tethered the animal to a nearby hawthorn.
A groan of pain drew her attention back to the man. She gasped.
A nasty bruise mottled the left side of his chest. From the scars that decorated his shoulders, arms, and back, this wasn’t his first injury in the line of duty. If it could be called duty. He did not wear anyone’s colors.
“Are you a professional soldier?” she asked. “Or one of those traveling monster hunters who try to solve a village’s problem at a reasonable price?”
The man felt along his ribs, slowly and with care. It was the sort of examination Mari would have given him once. He grunted with pain at one point and dropped his hand.
“Not too bad of a break, Jak,” he muttered. “But maybe duck next time a dragon takes a swing at you.” He limped back over to the door. “Stupid acid-spitters.” He snatched up the bag. Stopped. He glared hard at the packed, dirt floor. “I don’t know why the hell I keep doing this.”
Mari watched him putter around her home. He moved like a man laboring under a cloud, tossing logs into the fireplace with more force than necessary. Once the fire was made, he settled into her old rocking chair with a cold meal of dried fruit, cheese, and jerky. She glanced back out the window. The horse was taking a nap, one back leg lifted slightly.
She watched Jak eat, chewing hard and looking morose. After dinner, he attempted to wrap his ribs, only to give up with a few choice oaths. It wasn’t long before he fell asleep in her chair, which still somehow managed to hold weight.
The fire burned low by the time the silvery beams of the full moon filtered through the hole in the roof. Mari felt weight add to her limbs. When she breathed in, she drew in actual air and scent. She smelled the dirt of the floor, smoke and burning wood, and the distant hint of rain.
She left her corner and quietly approached the snoring man. Her nose wrinkled. It had been some time since Jak had seen a bathtub. He murmured in his sleep, tensing and clenching his hands. She blew softly over his face. He relaxed and slipped into deeper rest.
As the moonlight filled the space, it transformed. No longer decrepit, it appeared just like any herbalist’s modest home. Bundles of herbs hung drying from the rafters. Corked bottles of various sizes, shapes, and colors crowded shelves beside books and ledgers. Fresh bandages and salves in tins waited on the worktable beside the pitted, damaged sword.
Satisfied, Mari nodded. “Time to work.”
Jak woke refreshed, as if he had spent the night in a feathered bed rather than a chair of questionable stability.
Soft rain pattered through the holes and gaps of the roof, though none of it touched where he was. He shifted and moved to stretch, only for pain to tug at his side. And not just pain. He looked down. Fresh bandages swathed his torso.
But Jak distinctly remembered giving up on that last night. And the fire crackled freshly in the hearth, as if someone had been feeding it through the night. On the stool by his feet was a bottle and a note. Slowly, he leaned down and picked it up.
Rest well, travel slowly, and avoid dragons for a month. This tincture will ease your pain and speed your recovery. Five drops in the morning until the bottle is empty. – M
Jak looked around. “Hello? Someone here?”
But the abandoned cottage was silent save for rain and birdsong. After a moment, the door groaned, as if something pressed against it.
Jak stumbled to his feet, fumbling for his dagger. The door groaned open. His horse stuck in his head into the building.
“Dammit, Gilbert,” Jak said. He sheathed the dagger. “I wish I hadn’t taught you how to open doors. You scare me every time.”
Gilbert snorted and stared at him, as if reminding Jak of all the times this little trick had, in fact, come in handy.
“How did you even slip your lead, anyway?” Jak muttered.
He looked around, trying to understand who ‘M’ was and how he managed to be bandaged without waking. But the only footprints on the dirt floor were his own. Nothing looked disturbed. A good spirit of some kind? He would return to the village and see if anyone knew anything.
“Oh, aye.” The tavern keeper, Kate, set the tankard of ale in front of Jak. She paused to wipe her hands on her apron. “That’s Mari’s cottage that you found.”
“Who is Mari?” Jak picked up the tankard and sipped. It was decent-enough ale. It made him miss Longbreath but that wasn’t hard to do. At least once a day, he missed home. It was an old ache, well-worn and well-known.
“Mari was the village healer.”
“What happened to her?” Why was he even asking? The swamp dragon was dead. The last thing he needed was to go chasing ghosts.
“No one really knows. One day, she was in the market, selling herbs, and then no one saw her for a week. Some men went out to check on her.” The older woman leaned against the bar. “All they found was a cottage with no one home. Been like that for ten years now.”
“Eleven,” chimed in a man standing nearby. “Been missin’ eleven years.”
“Missin’?” Kate snorted. “More like run off or moved on or some such. She was too good for Smithglade. Too smart. She deserved to be elsewhere.”
The man grunted and drank his ale.
Jak said, “Did you know this Mari, master?”
The man said, “Was almost betrothed to her.”
“No such thing as being almost betrothed.”
“She would have said yes one day.” He finished his ale and slapped a coin onto the counter before walking away.
The tavern was only half-full, it being nearly the middle of a workday. Stew bubbled from a cauldron in the fireplace, sending meaty smells to mix with the stouter aromas of old sweat and beer.
“You really think she moved to the city?” asked Jak. He drank more ale.
“Oh, yes. I don’t hold with any of the ghost stories.”
“Well, somebody tended to my injury while I slept. Someone left this note.” He pulled it from where he’d stuck it in his belt, setting it down.
Kate picked it up, squinted at it, and then set it down. “I can’t read, so I can’t tell ya if that’s Mari’s script. But you’re not the first traveler to come away from that cottage with a tale to tell. Every now and again, some boys will go out there to spend a night and drink and be, well, boys. Then they come back, scared witless. People sometimes talk ‘bout burnin’ it down, but they don’t.” Her face softened. “We did like Mari. I guess we’re waitin’ on her to come home.” She scrubbed hard at the spotless counter with a clean cloth. “Anyway. Mayor Luke will be in this evenin’ with your payment. We thank you for takin’ care of that swamp dragon.”
Jak grunted, drinking more.
Kate continued, “’Till then, make yourself comfortable. Room and board are on the house.”
“I appreciate that. But I think I’m going back to that cottage. Don’t worry. I’ll return in the evening.”
Kate frowned. “No. If you’re gonna go, go tonight.”
Jak raised a brow.
She glanced around and then leaned forward. “Stories are, if you go in the moonlight, you’ll see somethin’. But they’re just stories, mind. Like I said, I don’t really believe ‘em.”
He nodded. In his line of work, he’d learned that they weren’t always just stories.
The full moon silvered the land with her rays when Jak dismounted by the old well. The cottage in front of him glowed with firelight.
He looped the reins over the limb of the hawthorn tree and gave Gilbert a hard look. But the horse was already nosing around for grass. Jak left him to it and approached the cottage. Soft singing made him pause.
A woman’s voice called, “The door is unlocked.”
Well, then. Jak opened the door. Just like yesterday, the hinges protested loudly.
The inside of the cottage, though, was changed. It was homey and smelled of drying herbs and cooking meat. A woman with long, dark hair bound in a braid stood at a worktable, tying a bundle.
“Come in,” she said. “How’s the tincture working for you?”
He entered and closed the door behind him. “It seems to be working fine so far. Thank you.”
“Good.” She hung the bundle.
“Is that lavender?”
“It surely is.”
“This is your cottage? You’re Mari?”
“Yes and yes. Are you hungry?” She gestured to the hearth, at a pie on a grate. “It’s a meat and potato pie.”
“No, thank you, mistress,” Jak said. “I ate before I came here.”
“Why have you come? To thank me? There’s no need.”
He looked around the room, at its changed appearance, and thought about Kate’s story and the words of the bitter man counting the years. He could just walk away and be satisfied that he saw who helped him. But habit, or perhaps his own special calling, left him rooted in the spot.
“Mistress,” Jak said, “if you are cursed, I can help you.”
“That’s very confident of you.”
He started to shrug, then changed his mind. “It’s an earned confidence, I assure you.”
“A pity that confidence didn’t save your sword.” She smiled slightly.
Jak found him returning the smile. “It is a pity. I really liked that sword. But Smithglade doesn’t have its name for no reason. I’ve replaced my blade.” He patted the hilt of his new weapon. “I only have to learn this one, mold it to my hand.”
“That is good.”
He nodded. “What happened to you?”
Mari’s smile broadened slightly. “Why do you want to know?”
“Like I said, I can help you.”
“You’re assuming that I wish to be helped.”
“You don’t? Mistress Mari, I was here all last night and never saw you. Didn’t you wish to interact with me? Don’t you wish to be able to go into the market and join the lives of the villagers? There’s a man who has been counting the years since you disappeared.”
“Howard.” Mari sighed. “I do hope that man will move on one day. But, no. I am content.”
“I don’t understand.”
She came around the table and stood in front of him. “Eleven years ago, I found an injured hawk and I nursed it back to health. I spoke to it. Told it my deepest desire because I had no one else to tell it to. And then, one day, the hawk became a man of otherworldly beauty. He granted me my wish.”
He raised a brow. “You wanted to become invisible except on special occasions?”
She laughed. It was as warm and welcoming as the cottage had become. “Guess again.”
Jake turned her story over, assessing it like any good monster hunter. Realization came over him in a rush of cold. He took a step back.
“You wish to become fae,” he whispered.
“I have been told it is a slow process, but I am patient. Not just any fae, either. I wish to become a fae spirit of these woods and of Smithglade.”
“Why?”
She gestured outward. “Because I love this place. I love the people. I want to protect and care for them. The best way for me to do that, to fulfill my calling, is for me to undergo the long, slow maturation that will make me a fae. I must learn the language of this land, its rhythms, and become tied with the very life which flows through it and all that lives here. I, of course, miss village life and being around people. But that is the sacrifice I must make.” She tilted her head. “I think you know something about callings and sacrifices.”
Longbreath. For a moment, Jak stood in the market square again, listening to his brothers haggle with a vendor while simultaneously arguing among themselves. He heard the bubbling fountain and the giggle of a clutch of girls as they walked past.
“Yes,” he sighed. “I believe I do.”
“What made you take the path you are on now?”
“My home no longer exists. It was destroyed by a coven.”
“And now?”
“Now…” He smiled. “I destroy covens. Among other things.”
She nodded. An easy understanding settled between them.
“Well,” he said, “I suppose I will return to the village.”
“Stay. It’s dark out. Spend the night.” Mari gestured to the fireplace. “I wouldn’t mind hearing a little about the world and your travels.”
“Well, far be it from me to refuse the request of a fae.” He laughed.
The next morning, he woke alone. Or, appeared to be alone. Jak sat up in his bedroll and looked around the decrepit room, morning sunlight slanting in through gaps in the ivy and bramble covering the windows. He wondered if she stood just off to the side, watching. It was creepy and comforting all at once.
They’d spent most of the night talking. She spoke about her explorations of the forest and what she was learning so far of the land and its denizens. She often struggled for words, as so much of it was beyond the common tongue. He regaled her with stories of the road.
Jak stood, grunting slightly at the pain in his side. If disapproval could be felt, he did so then as a shiver down his spine. He got out the tincture and counted five drops out onto his tongue.
He took his time packing up and getting Gilbert ready for the road. But before he left, he lingered inside the cottage.
“It would have been nice,” he said, “to have met you twelve years ago, but it’s still good to have met you now.”
There was no answer. He waited a few heartbeats, all the same. But, eventually, he did have to leave.
Jak intended to drop by the tavern in Smithglade again and let Kate know that she didn’t have to worry about Mari anymore. And that it would be a good idea to leave the cottage alone.
After that? The road and monsters to fight and wonders to behold. And, hopefully, more friends to make.
Jak is such an intriguing character; I enjoyed following him!
Ooh this was good … reminded me a bit of The Witcher series … and I was not expecting that it was her wish! But perfect.