The Islands of the Blessed

Jack sat in the shade of a tree trying to regain that odd impression he’d had earlier, of the woodland being a creature with one mind. Perhaps it was the pooling of the life force, or perhaps—a cold finger touched Jack’s heart—the hazel wood was a corner of the realm where the Forest Lord held sway. He remembered the subtle whispering among the leaves in that realm and the way a root humped up to catch an unwary ankle.

This isn’t the Land of the Silver Apples. I’m being foolish, he thought. The Forest Lord would never have allowed his trees to be cut back as these were. This was Jack’s country, where folks were sensible. No Pictish gods here.

He cleared his mind to call to the life force. Come to me. Reveal yourself. Show me the paths by which you travel. The wood remained as before, with birds darting to and fro, frogs cheeping, and spiders connecting the spokes of their webs in the branches above.

The sun began to incline to the west, and Jack remembered he hadn’t collected the herbs the Bard had asked for. He began exploring along the border between the hazel wood and the oak forest. He found a bed of mint and chewed a few leaves to stave off hunger pangs. He gathered elecampane for coughs, fennel for stomachaches, and valerian for troubled sleep. He picked mugwort to use against the flying venom that traveled from house to house, bringing fever in its wake.

Under a birch tree Jack discovered atterswam, a beautiful but very dangerous mushroom. It had a bright red cap spotted with white, and the Bard said Northmen sometimes used it to go berserk. “It gives them visions, and occasionally it kills them,” the old man had said. “Too bad it doesn’t work that way more often.” Jack wondered whether Thorgil had ever taken it.

Where was she? She’d make good on her threat to stay away from Jack’s house. Once declared, a threat was as good as an oath with her. He’d have to explain to Mother and Father why she didn’t visit anymore, but they’d be pleased. Everyone was growing weary of Thorgil’s constant battles with the Tanner girls. Where would she go? John the Fletcher might put her up in his barn. He admired her skill with horses. When winter came, she’d have to move in with the Bard.

Jack collected a few of the red mushrooms, making sure to keep them separate from everything else. A squirrel scampered up a tree with an atterswam in its mouth. Jack threw a stick at it, trying to make it drop the poisonous fungus, but the squirrel climbed beyond his reach and continued eating. Perhaps squirrels like visions, he thought, hoping the creature wouldn’t fall dead from its perch.

The sun slid behind the hills. Darkness flowed into the woodland and a mist fumed from the boggy ground, making the trees appear as though they were floating in a white sea.

And suddenly, the birds stopped calling. The boisterous chatter that accompanied sunset vanished as though an unseen enemy had appeared under the trees. Dusk became darker, cold deeper, earth danker.

Jack stood perfectly still.

Was it a wolf? Or, God forbid, a bear? Oddly enough, he smelled seaweed, though the breeze had died. Has one of those paths between the worlds opened? Jack thought, both excited and afraid. If so, what had stepped through?

A cold presence spread through the mist. It enveloped him with such malevolent force that he gasped and almost dropped the collecting bags. Such chill he had not felt since confronting Frith Half-Troll. It was like a door into the heart of winter. His body grew numb and his mind went blank.

In the distance Brother Aiden rang the prayer bell. It was a frail sound, hardly louder than the call of a chick, but so pure that it pierced through the gathering gloom. The spell was broken. Jack clutched the bags to his chest and fled down a long, pale avenue of bluebells, now gray with twilight. Mist swirled about his legs. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. His feet sank into pockets of mud, almost sending him sprawling, but he kept going until he broke out into a field.

He ran until the hazel wood was only a shadow against the oak forest. The sky outside was still blue, with wisps of clouds catching the sunlight from beyond the hills. The field, although ruined by the storm, had a normal, friendly look about it. Jack bent over to catch his breath.

Brother Aiden struck the bell a second time, and a scream erupted from the woodland. It went on longer than any creature could possibly scream and finally died away into a low, shuddering moan. But by that time Jack was at the other end of the field. By his side ran a fallow doe so panicked that she paid no attention to the human within arm’s reach of her.