The Water Witch (16 page)

“Yes, you can use Aelvesgold to create a bond in order to strengthen a correlative spell. That’s why magic became more difficult as the supply of Aelvesgold diminished in this world. But we don’t have that problem. You’re brimming with the stuff.”

He took my hand and held it out in front of my face. For a moment I was too distracted by the strange prickly sensation his touch roused to see what he was showing me, but then I saw it—a thin gold aura around my hand.

“With this much Aelvesgold running through your body you can do practically anything
—become
practically anything. I think we may be able to release your blocked-up energy by using metaphorical magic to change form.”

“Change form?” I asked.

“Some witches call it shapeshifting. When you assume the shape of another creature you can sometimes unlock trapped energy. Besides,” he added, grinning and looking especially boyish, “it’s fun.”

W
e headed outside to my backyard. Duncan said magic was stronger in the open air.

“The woods will offer us more options for transformation. I’m assuming there’s not much in the way of wildlife in the house.”

“There’s Ralph,” I said, explaining how Ralph had come into existence. My faithful companion had stayed hidden behind the books while Duncan was in the library.

“It sounds like he’s your familiar,” Duncan said. “And you should avoid transforming into your familiar’s shape. It creates complications. I think you need a form that’s more liberating.”

We’d come to the edge of the woods. The light from my back porch had lit our way across the yard, but beyond the trees it was dark. Either the moon hadn’t risen yet or there was no moon tonight. I supposed that if I was going to be a witch I should start noticing matters of this sort. I suddenly felt very unprepared for whatever it was we were going to do.

“You mean I’m going to turn into an animal?” I asked.

Duncan turned to me but I couldn’t make out his face in
the dark. “It’s one of the oldest forms of magic,” he said. He twirled his hand in the air and all at once the night filled with luminous pictures, revolving around us like a magic lantern show. Herds of painted deer, horses, and horned cattle galloped around us, so lifelike I heard their hooves hammering the night air and smelled their musk. One figure among them reared up taller than the rest: a two-legged creature wearing a horned mask. I recognized the figure as a being from a cave painting in France that was sometimes called the Sorcerer of Trois-Frères. The ancient image was believed to depict a shaman wearing an animal mask, but as it spun around me I sensed that the creature was neither wholly human nor animal, but was instead a creature caught in the moment of transforming from one to the other.

“No one knows whether the fey taught humans how to transform themselves into animals or if it was the other way around,” said Duncan. “Some believe it is a magic older than fey or witch—that it’s animal magic. By reverting to a primitive form, you may be able to unlock whatever is blocking your magic. But first you must
connect
with that primitive self.”

Duncan held up his hand and a breeze stirred the trees, bringing with it the sweet aroma of honeysuckle. Now that my eyes were adjusted to the dark, I could make out white and yellow blooms glowing in the woods like fireflies. Duncan again twirled his hand and warm, fragrant air twined around me like a caressing silk scarf. Another twirl and the scent sharpened. Something musky rode the air along with the honeysuckle. I took a step closer and saw that the glowing orbs in the woods weren’t all honeysuckle blossoms. Some were eyes! We were being watched. I startled back but Duncan put his arm around me and gripped my shoulders tightly to keep me from moving away.

“Look,” he whispered, his lips close to my ear. “
Really look
.”

I stared, opening my eyes as wide as they could go. Slowly, shapes formed out of the dark—graceful, long-legged shapes. Deer. At first, I made out only one—a large, beautiful doe, her long neck stretching toward me, her ears tensed forward, one hoof delicately splayed to the side as if poised for flight. Then another appeared by her side, a buck whose antlers I had taken a moment ago for branches … and then another and another. They seemed to be forming out of the dark spaces between the trees—a herd of deer, all still as statues, watching us.

“Are they … 
regular
deer or magical deer?” I asked.

“What do you think?” Duncan replied.

I looked closer. At their eyes which were large and golden, at the buck’s antlers, tipped with gold … The deer were full of Aelvesgold, so they must be from Faerie.

“I saw
him
once before,” I whispered. “On Christmas night.”

“That’s the king of the forest, Cernunnos. I imagine he’s been keeping a keen eye on you. Look, he wants you to approach.”

The buck stepped past the beautiful doe and stamped a hoof on the ground. Summoned, I moved forward. I put my hand out, as I might for a dog or horse. He lowered his head with the grace of a courtier bowing before a lady and touched his velvety muzzle to my hand. He huffed and his warm breath misted the air in a golden cloud that grew between us. I looked up and met those large golden eyes, feeling a spark of recognition.

“Do you see the Aelvesglow?” Duncan said from behind me. He suddenly seemed far away. “Do you see how it connects you to all things?”

Lifting my hand I saw it was surrounded by an aura of gold. My whole body was surrounded by a nimbus of gold.

“You’re made of the same substance, all interconnected. When you move …” He reached around me and held his hand a few inches above mine. Gold light filled the space between us. When he lifted his hand I felt a tug on mine, as if we were connected by invisible strings. It reminded me of my dream: how Liam had stirred the gold light over my naked body.

“You can do it, too,” Laird said.

I lifted my hand above his and saw his hand trail behind mine. I swung my arm in a wide balletic arc. It was like stroking through warm water. The branches of the trees above us swayed in the same arc; a shower of honeysuckle blossoms drifted down and landed on the buck’s antlers, forming a flowery wreath. The deer were swaying, too, their golden eyes following the motions of my arms. The drifting flowers danced in the air like tiny ballerinas. I laughed and the golden air rippled in concentric circles that spread outward into the woods. I felt the ripples touch the trees and move through them. I
felt
the trees, their rough bark, the sap that flowed in them, the prickle of leaves sprouting from branch tips … I looked down and saw where the gold light limned my fingertips, the shadow of branches.

“The Aelvesgold heightens your connection to the rest of the world,” Duncan whispered in my ear. “When you are
like
a thing, you can become that thing. That’s the root of metaphorical magic—the
oldest
magic.”

I stretched my arms out and felt them sway in the breeze with the branches. I wiggled my toes and felt the stir of roots. I could be a tree if I wanted to … or perhaps something more mobile. I concentrated on the doe. Her nose twitched and I sniffed the air. The night was awash with rich scent. Mingled
with honeysuckle was the musk of the herd, the tang of pine in the branches, the sap moving through the trees, the bitter taste of bark that we would eat in winter … but not now when it was summer and there were fields of fresh grass and tender leaves …

My mouth watered. I lifted my nose to the air … and felt my neck lengthen. I heard the deer stir and my ears pointed and twitched at the sound. My skin itched to be gone and I felt fur bristle down my legs … felt my legs and arms grow long and strong, my fingers and toes hardening into hoofs. I stamped the ground and looked back to Duncan, but where he had stood was another buck, as large and golden as Cernunnos, his antlers branching against the sky. The two bucks huffed at each other, and I felt the air crackle with tension and saw the tawny skin of Aelvesgold stretched taut between them. They both lowered their heads, but before they could charge, the beautiful doe pawed the ground and tossed her graceful head. As if that had been the signal they were waiting for, the herd turned as one, like a flock of birds wheeling in the sky, and sprang away. I felt the tug of their movement and followed without thinking.

A fire leapt up my legs, a delicious spark that traveled from my hooves to the tips of my pointed ears. The other deer had melted into the woods, but I felt them ahead of me and Duncan at my side. We ran together, our hoofbeats keeping time with each other, moving deeper and deeper into the woods until we exploded into a moonlit field. I felt the openness like a dangerous tingling all over my body, but when I lifted my head I saw Cernunnos and the beautiful doe grazing on the hilltop, so I knew it was all right. I looked to Duncan and saw that he was also grazing. I lowered my head and nibbled the silvery moonlit grass. It tasted like
summer
, like life: delicious, but fleeting. I didn’t even bother chewing it. It slid down my
long throat into my second stomach where I would store it until I had more time. Now I sampled one tuft of tender green shoots and then another, drifting across the field with the others. A young fawn kicked its hind legs and butted its head into its mother; a group of young bucks rubbed their antlers against the back of a fallen log. I rubbed my face against a clump of clover and lifted my nose to sniff the fragrant air. Beside me, Duncan lifted his head and rubbed his neck against mine, spreading clover and musk into my fur. A delicious tingle spread in my legs, and before I even knew I had decided to move, we were running. Just Duncan and me now, across a wide meadow and then back into the woods. I felt Duncan’s breath hot on my neck as we ran side by side. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him, his strong neck stretched forward into the run, his fur tipped with gold, his antlers glistening with moonlight. A wild desire spurred me on while at the same time I wanted to knock myself against him, twine my neck with his, feel his rough fur against mine … but for now running together was enough. We were linked by the Aelvesgold, bound as surely as if we had been yoked.

I don’t know how far or long we ran. The nearly full moon hung low in the western sky when we came to a stop at last beside a rushing stream that reflected the first blush of dawn in its rippled water. Duncan dipped his head to the water first and then, when he lifted his head, water dripping in moonlit pearls from his velvety antlers, I lowered my head and drank. The water was icy and tasted like winter. Of bitter bark and deep snows and hunger. It seemed to fill my veins with an icy sadness, but I would have drunk longer if Duncan hadn’t huffed and stamped the ground. I looked up, but whatever danger he sensed was invisible to me. I was losing a bit of my
deerness
as I grew tired, but I was still deer enough that when Duncan leapt across the stream I leapt after him.

Something in the water reached up to stop me, something cold and wet that snagged my hoof and pulled me down to my knees in the fast-moving water. I cried out in a voice that was neither fully deer nor fully human. A face rose out of the water level with my own. I was looking into wide moss-green eyes as cold and dispassionate as river stones … and then long cold arms wrapped around my neck and pulled me under the water.

Lorelei. She had followed me through the door and had lain in wait to drown me. I kicked out against her, but my hooves only scrabbled along the creek bottom. Lorelei rode my back, forcing my face under the water. My limbs, so graceful on land, were now clumsy. And I was tired. I had run for miles. Still, I bucked and struggled. As I did, I felt myself changing. I was turning back into my human form.

If only I could change into a fish, I thought. As quick as the thought flitted through my brain I felt myself contracting. My legs and arms hewed to my sides, my skin flaked into scales. I took a breath and drew in oxygen rich water. I was slipping free of Lorelei’s grasp …

But I’d forgotten what undines lived on. Before I could get away, sharp claws pierced my gills. She’d skewered me like a shrimp on a spit and now she was lifting me into her gaping, needle-toothed mouth. I thrashed to get out of her grip, but her claws only sank deeper into my skin. Her eyes glowed with malice and delight as she squeezed … but then they widened with surprise. Something jarred her. I felt the reverberation in my gut. I looked up and saw the shadows of branches spreading over her head—then another jolt. Lorelei screamed and turned to face her attacker, flinging me aside in panic. I hit something hard and dry. I was on land, gasping to breathe like a fish out of water … No, that wasn’t the image I needed.
Like a drowning person dragged ashore
. I pictured
myself—my own human body—and then I was retching up water, my limbs bruised and battered but once more my own. I was on a large flat rock that hung over the stream. Duncan, still in his deer form, stood a few feet from me, his head lowered to ward off Lorelei with his antlers. Her hair was wild and matted, her green eyes flashing, her lips curled over her sharp teeth in an angry snarl. Blood ran down her pearl-slick skin, pooling in crimson swirls around her slim legs. When I sat up, her eyes snapped from Duncan to me.

“I see you didn’t waste time finding another male to protect you, Doorkeeper. Is that why you don’t want the undines free to come to this world—because you want all the men to yourself?”

“I’m trying to keep the door open!” I cried.

Lorelei laughed. “By running naked in the woods?”

I looked down at myself and saw with horror that she was right: I
was
naked.

“And copulating with that handsome buck?” She gave Duncan an appreciative look.

“I was not …” But before I could finish she raised her arms and summoned a thunderclap that drowned out what I was going to say. The boom was followed by a torrent of rain that came down like a curtain on the last act of a bloody and tragic opera. Lorelei dove into the water and disappeared in the current. Duncan lifted his head and turned, becoming a man again. A rather nicely built man, I noticed as he waded through the water toward me. That linen suit had been hiding a muscular chest and strong arms.