Daughter Of The Forest by Juliet Marillier Page A

Sorcha? For you are no longer innocent .
    So, I warred with myself, and could not ignore that other voice. Still it was agony to believe: Could the brothers that had tended my bruised knees and taken me along, with reasonable patience, on so many childhood adventures really be the cruel and unscrupulous savages the boy had depicted? And if so, where did that leave me, and Finbar? I was not so naïve, even at twelve, as to believe only one side in this conflict was capable of torture and hurt. Had we saved the true enemy? Was nobody to be trusted?
    Father Brien took his time. I stayed where I was while the conflict within me slowly abated, and my mind was taken over by a stillness that emanated from the old trees themselves, and from the ground that nourished them. This was a familiar feeling, for there were many places in the great forest where you could drink in its energy, become one with its ancient heart. When you were in trouble, you could find your way in these places. I knew them, and Finbar knew them; of the others I am not so sure, for often when the two of us sat quiet in the fork of a great oak or lay on the rocks looking into the water, they were running, or climbing, or swimming in the lake. Even so, I was learning how little I knew my own brothers.
    The rain had stopped completely, and in the shelter of the grove the air was damp and fresh. Birds came out of hiding; their song fluted overhead, passing and passing, very high. At such still moments, voices had spoken to me many times, and I had taken these to be the forest spirits or the souls of the trees themselves. Sometimes I felt it was my mother’s voice that spoke. Today, the trees were quiet, and I was in some distant place of the mind when a slight movement on the other side of the clearing startled me out of my trance.
    There was not the least doubt in my mind that the woman who stood there was not of our world; she was exceptionally tall and slender, her face milk-white, her black hair down to her knees, and her cloak the deep blue of the western sky between dusk and dark. I stood up slowly.
    “Sorcha,” she said, and her voice was like a terrible music. “You have a long journey before you. There will be no time for weeping.”
    It seemed crucially important to ask the right questions, while I had the chance. Awe made me tongue-tied, but I forced the words out.
    “Are my brothers evil, as this boy tells me? Are we all cursed?”
    She laughed, a soft sound but with a strength in it beyond anything human.
    “No man is truly evil,” she said. “You will discover this for yourself. And most of them will lie, at least some of the time, or tell the half-truths that suit them. Bear this in mind, Sorcha the healer.”
    “You say a long journey. What must I do first?”
    “A longer journey than you can possibly imagine. You are already on the path set out for you, and the boy, Simon, is one of its milestones. Tonight, cut goldenwood. This herb you may use, to quieten his mind.”
    “What else?”
    “You will find the way, daughter of the forest. Through grief and pain, through many trials, through betrayal and loss, your feet will walk a straight path.”
    She began to fade before my eyes, the deep blue of her cloak merging with the darkness of the foliage behind her.
    “Wait—” I started forward across the clearing.
    “Sorcha?” It was Father Brien’s voice, calling me from within the cave. And she was instantly gone, as if there had been nothing there but afternoon shadows shifting in the breeze. Father Brien emerged from the cave mouth, drying his hands on a cloth.
    “I see we have a visitor,” he said mildly. I glanced at him sharply, then away into the shadows. Emerging cautiously into the clearing, as if uncertain of her welcome, was the dog, Linn. It seemed she had trailed me all the way up here. I spoke kindly to her and she ran to me in frenzied response, her whole body wagging in belated recognition and the urgent need of