[Shadowed Path 01] - A Woman Worth Ten Coppers by Morgan Howell

muddy feet in the shallow water. By the time she entered the outermost chamber, Honus was already wrapped in his cloak and lying on some hay piled near the wall. Yim could barely make out his dark form in the dim light. He didn’t call for her to lie beside him and though Yim would have liked the warmth, she was relieved that he didn’t. Yim groped for a dry spot in the moldy hay and wrapped herself in her cloak. She was exhausted and wished to sleep, but couldn’t. Instead, she considered what to do.
    Don’t be foolish, Yim told herself, recalling all her guardian’s warnings. Yet the Wise Woman was far away, and Yim couldn’t shake Mam from her thoughts. The old woman’s grief and madness tugged at her heart. In her mind’s eye, Yim envisioned Mam weeping over her murdered child and the image overwhelmed caution. Yim abandoned prudence. Compelled to act, she listened to Honus’s breathing for signs that he slept.
    Yim waited a long while before she rose from the hay. By then, the rain had ceased and the moon glowed behind thin clouds. Cautiously, she made her way to the room where Mam and Gan slept. Moonlight shining through high windows revealed them lying on their sacks near the ashes of the dead fire. Gan snored noisily, an ale bowl still in his hand. Yim knelt on the stone floor a few feet from Mam, then sat on her heels and folded her hands in her lap.
    Staring straight ahead, Yim took a deep breath and began the meditations she had learned as a child. As the world emptied from her mind, her surroundings seemed to fade while the invisible became apparent. Without moving her eyes, Yim glanced about until she spied a vaporous form. Wordlessly, she beckoned it.
    Yim remained rigid, and for a while, the only motion in the room was Mam’s tossing and turning as she slept. Then, the moonlight wavered as if clouds were streaking across the sky. Vaporous patches of shadow began to move over the floor. They grew darker until they became absolutely black. The room turned icy, and as Yim sat in perfect stillness, her breath came out as a foggy mist. The blackness gathered before her, forming a pool. The surface of that pool began to move upward like a person rising beneath a velvet cloth.
    Frost formed on the stones of the room, but sweat dripped down Yim’s brow. The blackness stopped rising and a pale glow appeared within it. A translucent figure of a child could be discerned, her form illuminated by some unseen source of light. The dark dissipated, leaving the girl standing before Yim. She was unclothed, as are all spirits of the dead.
    “Mirien?” whispered Yim.
    The child’s lips moved, mouthing words that only Yim could hear. Yim rose to her knees and held out her arms to embrace the ghost. The child stepped forward, and as Yim’s arms enfolded her, she dissolved. Yim began to shiver violently as she peered about the room. Everything about her wavered, being one thing and then another. Gan was a drunken man, and then he was a tiny boy. The filthy clutter came and went. Mam’s ratty white hair turned black and her wrinkled skin became smooth. Eventually, Yim’s vision settled, and she saw everything through long-dead eyes.
    She reached out and gently touched the cheek of the young woman asleep before her. The woman stirred. “Mommy,” said Yim in a child’s voice that was not her own.
    The woman’s eyes opened, then widened as she saw her daughter’s spirit within Yim. “Mirien,” she said, “Ah thought ya beed…”
    “Ah’m embraced by the goddess now.”
    The woman’s face crumpled beneath the weight of her grief, and Yim moved to cradle her in her arms. She held Mam and let her cry. When the sobbing diminished, Yim spoke again. “Great was my sorrow, but now great is my joy. Ya must believe that, Mommy.”
    “Mirien…Mirien, Ah miss ya so!”
    “Ah know, Ah know,” said Yim.
    “Did ya suffer much?”
    “My life seems but a dream with the sad parts over quick. Think on this