'Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd:
That night, a child might understand,
The Deil had business on his hand.'
-Tam O' Shanter, Robert Burns
oOo
21 years ago, one Samhain eve outside Castle Dunbroch.
"Make fun of me at yer own peril, Husband."
"What, humble I? Make fun of mah Queen?" Fergus tossed his head and snorted at his heavily pregnant wife. "Perish the thought, love! I would never dream of makin' light of yer wee fantasies. After all, I am afflicted with that most rare and mortal disease." He clasped one of her hands to his and brought it to his lips with a broad, suggestive grin. "Ah'm a husband who loves his wife."
He waggled his eyebrows at her and Elinor rolled her eyes, batting him away.
"Uch! I'm serious, Fergus. The festival rites are important. You may not believe in their power, but I do."
"Ah'm happy to go along with them, love, y'know I am," he said, mopping his sweat-beaded brow. "But d' we really have to walk Deiseil? Three times round the castle? I haven't even had dessert yet!"
"Oh wheesht, it's good for the baby."
"So's sittin' down," he grumbled.
Elinor ignored him and raised a hand to point out a bright speck in the inky black sky above their heads. It was the pole star, the tip of the Great Bear's tail. As a young girl, Elinor had spent nights at her window charting the route of the Bear's tail as it pointed to the east in Spring, to the south in Summer, marking the passage of each season as it travelled.
"A thousand generations before us have honoured the sun's passage by following the Great Bear's tail sunwise. Walking the Deiseil is more than just a silly tradition, Fergus. It's a connection to our ancestors." She gave him a sad smile. "My mother used to say fire was at the heart of it all. She would tell me the festival rites aid the sun's passage through mimetic magic. If the rites were ever ignored or forgotten, and the fires weren't lit, the Lady O' the Cold would return to reign over an everlasting winter of ice and snow. " Elinor chuckled at her husband's raised eyebrows and gave a small shrug. "Well, I didn't believe all of her tales. But they did scare me half to deat-ooh!"
Suddenly Elinor bent double with a pained cry. With a wince, one hand flew out to steady herself on the castle wall, while her other went to cover her stomach protectively. Fergus was at her side in an instant, holding her up and staring with wide, scared eyes.
"I'm ok," Elinor reassured, straightening her back, though she readily accepted her husband's arm. "This wee monster just has her father's strength, that's all. Bloody Mabel, she kicks like a horse."
Fergus blinked. "It's a girl?"
Elinor drew him an impatient look. "Of course it's a girl," she replied peevishly, as if the explanation was obvious.
Fergus knew better than to question his wife any further. "C'mon. The sun can wait. Ah'm getting' you back home."
"But-"
"But nothin', lass." He petted her cheek. "We'll do yer thing tomorrow. Ah promise."
With another wince, Elinor nodded reluctantly and allow him to shoulder her weight as they walked back the way they came into the castle grounds.
Ten hours later, the castle walls rang with the sound of a baby crying (a baby with her father's set of lungs, Elinor had remarked coolly). The rites were forgotten and celebrations turned to honour the birth of Dunbroch's new Princess, and if King Fergus had ever wondered why the winter was so fierce that year, or why it never seemed to end until his Queen performed the rites at Beltane the following May, he never shared his concerns.
oOo
Merida clung to Angus for dear life as they sped through the trees, the Clydesdale's large black head bowed low against the driving wind. The snow was getting deep, the storm more wild and the path into the hills treacherous. Up on the mountain range the wind was stirring the tops of the pines, rushing down the hillside into the valley with a chilling sound like a screaming banshee. Dunbroch was a stranger to her now. Snow tumbled down from the darkness, transforming the world into a strange and unfamiliar landscape: no rivers, no rocks, no paths, just an endless ocean of white hills and snow-clad woods. Even the trees felt different, rising up around her like tall dark sentinels, and their vicious branches snared Angus's mane and whipped at her eyes as they passed.
As Angus cleared a fallen trunk in one leap, a strange sight caught Merida's eye. Hundreds upon hundreds of black birds wheeled to and fro in a frantic, deafening chorus above the trees. She frowned. The crows should have settled down to roost hours ago, especially with a storm brewing. Something had disturbed them.
Sure enough, as they rode on, Merida saw other creatures stirring. Soon the forest was alive with strange sights: flashes of light, lumbering figures the size of small knolls, and thorny half-formed shadows. Once, she even glimpsed a gaunt figure scuttling through the gloom; a little old man with glassy eyes and skin as brown as leather, but as her eyes tried to fix on him, he scurried out of sight like a beetle and disappeared deep into the snowy undergrowth. Angus had nearly thrown her in fright. Merida petted the anxious horse and murmured soothing words into his twitching ears, but she could feel his fear like it was her own. The whole forest thrummed with panic.
Grimly, she thought back to the half-formed creature she had seen the night before at the edge of the games field. The wave of fear that caught her then almost knocked her sideways, for now her head swam with vague warning. It was like an ancient instinct was rising up in the space between the trees, spoken in a language she did not understand, but set the hairs on the back of her neck on end. It sounded like the distant beat of war drums...
Merida urged Angus faster, but it was getting harder to see more than a few feet ahead and their path was hummocked with unbroken snowdrifts. She was almost certain they were lost when a sharp cry above their heads made her look up.
"Walker abroad! Walker abroad! To the West! To the West!"
"It's the witch's crow!" she exclaimed, laughing with breathless relief. "C'mon lad, after him- hya!"
She turned Angus sharply around to follow the wheeling black shape of the crow as it tumbled and zig-zagged madly through the trees. Even at a fast gallop it was hard to keep the bird's shaggy black body in sight through the white flurries.
Finally they broke the treeline onto a high clearing. Without warning the full force of the gale hit them, stealing the breath from her lungs. Merida strained to look ahead, one hand outstretched, trying to shield her eyes from the sting of the driving snow.
Her heart sank as she saw where the crow had led her.
The thirteen megaliths of the Clanach Sluagh rose up against the storm; thirteen figures of warped stone trapped by some ancient process, like old gods frozen mid-movement, their names long forgotten. At the heart of the stone circle a fire burned.
Merida stared aghast as her eyes fell upon the Bear Witch. She had been tied to the pyre like a sacrifice at the centre of the broken circle of stones. The fire was starting to catch, jumping from log to log towards the old woman.
"A sacrifice," Merida whispered, as she recalled what the witch had said about the local villagers leaving 'sacrifices' at the stones; how this form of worship gave a god like the Cailleach its strength. Her eyes widened as realisation dawned. "Oh no.."
She spurred Angus into a gallop towards the stones, kicking up snow and crashing over the fallen megalith that had once crushed Mor'du, sending men scattering as the enormous horse charged towards the fire. When Angus reached the bonfire, his massive hooves came crashing down on the pyre's base and Merida leapt into the heart of it. The flames had not yet climbed to the top where the Bear Witch sagged against her bonds. Ignoring the surprised and angry cries of her clansmen, Merida started work on the thick ropes, pulling and tugging to no avail. The witch was barely conscious, her eyes half-lidded and head lolling.
"You've gone and inhaled too much smoke, old woman," Merida berated, coughing and hacking on the black curls of wood smoke rising up around them. It was already burning her throat and eyes.
"Merida! What are yeh doin' here?" Fergus shouted, his deep voice full of panic. "Get down from there!"
But she ignored him, reaching into her belt and pulling out a knife to saw at the ropes. "Come on, come on," she muttered desperately, eyeing the slow but steady crawl of the flames towards her. Men were clambering over the bonfire now as Fergus hollered at them to douse the flames, but the fire was uncontrollable, swallowing up branches and logs like a ravenous bear. Merida began to panic; she could feel the heat of the blaze uncomfortably close on her cheek now and she shook the witch's bony arms. "Come on! Do somethin', yeh old hag, I know yeh can! What good's magic if you cannae even use it to save yerself?!"
She heard her father give a fearful cry, and turned to see the hem of her cloak catch alight. Merida leapt back with a yelp of surprise, stamping the flames of her cloak out and plastering herself against the bonfire's mast. As she did so, her knife slipped from her sweaty palm into the maze of embers below. At the foot of the pyre she could see her father attempt to straddle the leaping web of flames. Lord MacGuffin and MacIntosh grabbed Fergus by his shoulders, wrenching him back as the flames darted higher. Merida gripped the wooden beam behind her, feeling herself begin to shake. The noise of the storm and the bonfire, and the shouts of the soldiers running to and fro were deafening – then suddenly, something happened that caused the world to stop.
The ground inside the stone circle trembled.
Part of the pyre crumbled away with the force of the jolt.
Angus gave a high-pitched whinny. He shook his mane and pawed at the ground, as a murmur went through the clansmen. Again, the earth jolted. Again, another portion of the fire fell away. Everything grew silent. For the first time, Merida noticed it wasn't snowing inside the circle. Perhaps she noticed because up until now the snow hadn't fallen within it. In fact, the ground was still muddy and green as it had been in summer, but now a faint trickle of snow fell into the ring, like a threat from the storm that prowled around its perimeter.
The third jolt was strong enough to knock some of the clansmen off their feet.
The Bear Witch's eyes flew open.
"Burn the ropes," she ordered.
Merida goggled at her. "You're still alive?!"
"Burn the ropes, you bushy-faced muppet! Are there any brains under all that hair?"
Merida scowled at her, but grabbed a burning branch nonetheless and thrust it against the knot of ropes until they blackened and broke apart.
"What's happening? Why's the earth moving?!"
"Why'd yeh think?" the Bear Witch muttered darkly, as the tremors intensified. "It's her."
The ground lurched again, stronger this time, and this time it didn't stop. The last of the pyre began to crumble; Merida knew they would have to jump or be engulfed by the flames. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled. Angus cantered towards her, wild-eyed and head jerking nervously. Merida scooped the old woman onto her back just as the pyre gave one last groan and began to collapse. She leapt, clearing the flames by a whisker, and landed on Angus's back with a bone-jarring jolt.
"Easy boy, easy!" she tried to soothe him, but the tremors were so strong now the very stones were starting to tremble in their roots.
The Lords and the soldiers were spooked too, and cries of a curse by the witch or sith inhabiting the old stones went up as they backed towards the edge of the circle, wide eyed and terrified out their minds. Finally a couple of soldiers lost their wits and bolted for a gap between the stones. A deafening sound of crashing rock and rubble echoed around the valley like thunder as the very earth beneath their feet fell away to nothing, revealing great cavernous holes around the broken stone, like fresh graves. The men who had been fleeing the circle tumbled and fell into darkness.
Fergus and the Lords ran to the gaping craters, but the gurgled screams that rose up from their depths stopped them in their tracks. Some gruesome fate had met those men down there. One last sacrifice to the auld stanes, down where they kept their deep roots.
"Aw no," the witch shook her head and tsked. "Well that's gone and done it."
Merida gave her disgusted look. "You say that like yeh've just burned the tea!"
"Much worse than burnt toast, dearie," the witch sniffed. "Things are gonnae get messy now. We have tae lead the Stoor Wyrm away from the circle."
Merida frowned. "The what?"
"It's the form she takes now, the Cailleach's spirit."
There came a wrenching crash and the wind paused, as if taking a breath. Then, in a dreadful furious moment a black mass rose up like a fountain of darkness. Angus reared, his fore-hooves lashing out, but Merida could only stare, transfixed by terror. The fear that accosted her nerves was like a sucking pit, crawling up her legs and arms until she could not feel anything but the heavy force of it upon her.
The Cailleach's shadow was like staring into breathing darkness; a massive, indistinct shape, like an armless torso, its neck too long and thin to hold the elongated head on top. Up it rose like an enormous worm, swaying higher and higher into the storm, taller than any tree, taller than the battlements of castle Dunbroch. It towered above them all, a dark inkblot against the white world. In its head one brilliant red eye blazed and swivelled madly in a gaping socket, searching for something. Snow trickled through the shapeless black body as if it were smoke, and strange blue lights hung inside its dark depths like suspended stars, pulsing faintly. Merida thought they looked like wisps.
The Lords and clansmen could only stare as she did, screams frozen in their throats as their minds tried to grapple with the enormity of the monster reaching above them. Even the Bear Witch was silent and her bony fingers dug painfully into Merida's sides. Nobody spoke. Nobody could. Not even as streamers of darkness drifted down from the creature swaying above them, raining like ash-drift from a fire. They were quickly followed by large leaking globules of a black-ish liquid, like old blood. Where they splashed on the ground, the earth turned instantly dead and grey, drained of all colour and life.
It wasn't until the first man dropped dead that they realised the creature rained death upon them.
Dougal jerked Colin off the ground seconds before a sluggish tendril of the black substance could land on the man's shoulder.
"Don't let the shadow touch you!" Fergus ordered, wrenching Lord MacGuffin away from his own near miss, and retreating from the creature with his sword arm raised. "Merida! Get back to the castle!"
But the witch tugged on the Princess's arm urgently.
"Take this," said the Bear Witch sharply, and thrust a small, cold object into Merida's hand. "It is a hagstone. It may not look much, but it is a powerful object. As long as you have it, the Stoor Wyrm will follow you. As long as you keep it close, yer bound to her."
Merida opened her palm- it was a perfect circle of stone with a hole in its centre, ice cold and heavy like a weight. The surface was a polished reddish brown. It looked like nothing more than a river pebble.
The witch looked at Merida with steady grey eyes. "I'm askin' you to do a very dangerous thing, dearie. You understand that? If the Stoor Wyrm is allowed to stay here it will destroy all you hold dear." She pressed her hand over the stone in Merida's hand. "With the hagstone you can change that fate."
Merida stared at the stone. She could feel herself shaking. The witch's voice was far away, the blood in her ears thrummed to the beat of war drums beneath the earth that she know knew to be the awful chanting of the Clanach Sluagh. Their rage felt so real, the terror of them sunk their teeth into her and she began tremble uncontrollably.
Then she thought of her mother and brothers back at the castle; of Colin and Dougal who had become her kin through friendship rather than marriage. She saw her father standing with the Lords, his sword drawn ready for battle, and remembered the sad fate of Clan MacGuffin. Finally, she thought of a shy, awkward boy she had once known, and the strange distant man he had become; of pale eggshell blue eyes and a kind smile that had briefly lit a fire in her heart.
Merida's hand closed in a tight fist around the stone.
"Sorry, Dad," she whispered. Then she thrust the stone into the air and bellowed, "Cailleach Bheara!"
The single eye swivelling inside the shapeless thing's head snapped towards her, its body pulsating and hissing with rage, though it had no mouth to speak of.
"I know what you are! And I know what it is you're lookin' for!" she shouted, even as her hand around the stone trembled. Having the creature's full attention on her made her want to run and hide. But she was a Princess. She had duties. Responsibilities. Expectations. Her fist closed around the stone again as she turned Angus around. "If you want it, come an' get it yeh manky old hag!"
She kicked Angus into action and he launched into full gallop. With a shrill whinnying cry, Angus leapt out of the stone circle and plunged back into the storm. Instantly the wind screamed around them, whistling up Merida's sleeves and ripping at her cloak and hair. She couldn't see a thing through the driving snow now. The old woman's bony arms were wrapped in a death grip around Merida's waist as she clung to Angus. She didn't need to turn around to know the Cailleach was following, sluggish but furiously loud, its wormy body crashing through trees after them.
"For a shadow she sure makes a racket!" Merida shouted, shooting a nervous look over her shoulder. There was a hole in the creature's head now, a gaping black thing that looked disturbingly like a mouth.
The Bear Witch grinned wryly and winked. "Aye, and she's got a temper on her like a sullen wee wifey!"
Merida laughed with her. It was strange, she didn't feel the powerful force of Angus's hooves as they struck the ground, didn't feel the cold despite the frost spider-webbing across her hands and arms and face. Everything felt unreal, like this was all happening to someone else. All Merida felt was a peculiar calm and certainty: she could do this, she could fix things, she could make things right again.
Just like she also knew she was probably about to die.
But she wasn't alone, and that had to count for something. With one hand she covered the witch's own wrinkled hands where they gripped her around her waist, and squeezed.
Suddenly, Angus reared. A tendril of shadow had lashed out across their heads like a whip, the dark mass slamming into a spinney to their left where it smoked and withered the trees to their roots. Merida grabbed frantically at Angus's waving mane with both hands and ducked as a second inky black shape hurtled across their heads, but this time it was not the Cailleach.
"Kaaaaak – kaaaak!"
"Oh aye, now yeh show up," the witch shouted, shaking a balled fist up at the ball of black feathers circling their heads. "You raggedy stinking coward, I should've turned you into a chicken years ago!"
Mid-flight, the crow still managed to ruffle his feathers at the old woman, indignantly. "I can't help it, I come from a long line of cowards! It's amazing I'm here at all!" the crow snapped. "This way, this way. Follow me!"
With a jerk, Angus made a sharp turn to follow the witch's familiar into the thickest part of the forest. The storm was all around them now, drawn in like a net by the presence of the Cailleach's spirit. The sky growled and the mountain rumbled to the deafening beat of drums deep underground. Winds blew and blustered from all four corners, snapping like dogs at Angus's fetlocks. It pitched and flung them, tried to hurl Merida and the witch from their seat on the Clydesdale's back, to slam them against rock and tree and shatter their bones.
But now defiance surged through Merida's veins. She'd never put much stake or faith in stupid old gods. Besides, she was the Princess of Dunbroch. These were her lands and she'd be damned if some crabbit old deity would take them from her.
The crow knew the woods well and his zigzagging route through the trees had put some distance between them and the creature slithering after them. Feeling bolder, Merida half-turned in her saddle and shot a crude gesture at the single red eye she could see glowing like a torch through the forest gloom.
"C'mon you lang-nibbed dopey old God!" she jeered. "Yeh call this a race?! You could'nae outrun a lame coo!"
Behind her, the witch cackled gleefully. "Aye, is this all you've got in you now, Bheara? You've grown fat an' slow over the years, yer Majesty!"
"Ma' granny moves faster than you and she's deid!"
"Off with you, you puddock-face hinzzie!"
"Aye, beat it yah great big spoon heid!"
"YEH LIMP-BAGPIPE!"
"YAH SCABBY TATTIE!"
"YEH- tree!"
"Haha, aye- wait, tree? Ho shi-"
Too late, Merida felt her hands ripped from their clutches on Angus's mane as the Clydesdale jerked his head so fiercely to avoid collision that he tottered and let out a high-pitched cry – then Merida was falling through empty space, the snow white world up-ending around her in blur of motion over and over again.
She hit the ground hard and rolled, the shock of the fall forcing the air out of her lungs as she crashed down into the snowy undergrowth.
For a few moments she could only lie there in the deep snow, stunned and winded. In her snowy cot, the muffled world almost seemed peaceful again, the deep mountain drums turned to a soothing lullaby. Snow trickled down to catch in her eyelashes and her breath rose up in puffs of white cloud into the branches of a tree above. She stared. Despite the danger coming towards her, Merida couldn't help but gawk at the enormity of the yew sprawling above her head. It looked like it had been dead a long time. Just a tangled mass of long, reaching, black arms clawing at the wind. She imagined they looked like dead men's fingers, broken, twisted and grasping for whatever living thing had the misfortune to pass through them. The odd thought came swiftly and without warning, and her stomach gave a sickening lurch when she caught sight of the tattered remains of a bird's wing here and there, impaled upon knife-edge fingers. Then other images and sounds came to her: ropes twisting and straining, branches creaking under weight, a mournful cry... a strangled choking...
The witch' face popped into view. Her wiry eyebrows drew together in concern as she followed Merida's gaze up.
"Bad to stare at it it too long, dearie."
Merida glared. There wasn't a single scratch on the witch. She had survived the fall completely unscathed. "I'm starting to think you're indestructible," she muttered ruefully.
"Och, flatterer! Not completely." The witch gave her a toothy grin and offered a hand. "Come on girl, up you get. No time for your biting wit. The Stoor Wyrm will have trouble finding and breaching this neimheadh. She's no' at full power without her body, but it won't take her long. And we willnae get very far without your great daft steed."
With a quick glance at her surroundings, Merida saw they were stood on a small hillock, completely bare but for the enormous yew crowning its rocky peak. Tall oaks surrounded the knoll at its base, their curling overhead so that the hill and yew were completely hidden. Angus was nowhere in sight. In the distance, a long whinnying cry could be heard disappearing into the storm.
"Angus?" Merida's eyes grew wide as she staggered to her feet with a wince. "ANGUS! Ow-" She snapped her head back to the Bear Witch, who had plucked three strands of hair from her head. "What did you do that for?!"
The witch ignored her, weaving the red hairs into a series of complicated knots around a straw figure she had procured from one of her many pockets. Merida could only watch, baffled, as the witch carried her strange ministrations.
"What are you doing?" she asked incredulously. "Have you lost yer mind?" Exacerbated, she pointed down into the woods behind them. "If the Cailleach's spirit-that Stoor beastie or whatever you call it can still find us here, we have to leave!"
The witch shrugged. "No point in running, dearie, not any more." She looked up at Merida, eyes narrowing sternly. "You still have the hagstone?"
"Aye- OW!" She swore as the witch grabbed her wrist and pricked her pinkie finger with a pin, smearing the little drop of blood that bubbled forth onto the straw figure. When she was done, Merida snatched her hand away to suck on her fingertip, petulantly. "Would you please stop takin' bits of me without askin'?!"
The wind growled through the yews, making the hairs on the back of her neck prickle in warning.
The witch's crow landed on a boulder nearby, kaw-ing nervously. "She's at the edge of the Nemeton. Won't take her long to break in."
"Ooch, could she no' give us a wee bit more time?" the witch huffed to herself, and hurried over to the large oak. At its roots, she bent and began to dig a small hole in the snow.
"What's a- a Nemeton?" Merida asked.
"Good grief, doesn't that mother of yours ever teach you anything worth learnin'? A neimheadh is a sacred grove. My kin have used them for hundreds of years."
Merida narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Used them for what, exactly?"
"Oh y'know, the usual. Meetings, dances, catch-ups, the odd sacrifice."
"Hold on- sacrifice?"
The witch ignored her. "Course, this one's a wee bitty different from others. Long before Mor'du became the hairy galoot you tangled with, back when he was still a Prince, he would bring his enemies here, men and women who dared oppose his rule." She pressed her palm against the rough bark, a shadow passing over her face. "Each man, woman and child was cut, hung and buried alive on this tree."
Merida looked up at the shivering bony fingers of the hangman's tree and felt her mouth run dry. "That's barbaric."
"Aye, well, there was a belief then that a threefold killing would give you power over the deceased in the otherworld, but who can say what goes through a man's mind. 'Specially a hot mess of a man's like Mor'du," she added with a grunt. Then her gaze hardened. "Magic like that changes an old knoll like this. Blights it, makes it rotten, just as it did the stone circle. But it will suit our purposes."
As the old woman placed the straw figure inside the hole she had dug, Merida felt a change come over the Nemeton; a kind of stillness, like the world was holding its breath. Suddenly she knew the Cailleach had found them.
Scanning the clustered trees around them, Merida reached back and tugged at the witch's shawl. The storm went silent, the howling winds pulled back to heel, but she could see the tops of the surrounding pine trees begin to stir and part, as if someone or something was rising up between them. Merida shook the witch's arm again, this time more violently. Her nerve was starting to fail her again. Being so close to the Cailleach was like standing on the cliff-edge of madness.
"Hurry up," Merida hissed through her teeth. "It's here!"
The Bear Witch stood, dusting her hands, and said cheerfully, "Good. Here is where I shall meet her."
Merida blinked. "What?" Her heart turned cold as the old woman's words sank in. "No. No."
Ignoring her, the old woman rose to throw an icy ball of snow at the crow.
"Off with you now, yeh mangy beast!" she shouted, shooing her hands at him. The crow hopped aside, looking almost hesitant, until the witch tossed another missile at him for good measure. "You know what to do. Don't you dare leave her!"
With a last 'Kaak!' the tatty bird flapped up into the sky to disappear amongst the branches of the hangman's tree. Then the witch turned back to the Princess with a weary smile, grasping both of her shoulders firmly. Merida was surprised by the old woman's iron grip.
"Follow the crow. Goodness knows he'll drive you round the bend, but no other living creature knows that place like a crow does, dearie." The witch paused. "Just.. don't name him. Name a thing like that and it'll never let you live it down," she snickered, but the laughter didn't reach her tired eyes. "If you do lose yer way, look up to the lights. They'll guide you home again."
But Merida was shaking her head. Her eyes were prickling and hot, and she shrugged the witch's hands off with a fiercely defiant look. "Forget it! I made a promise to deal with you ma'self. You're comin' with me, old woman! We just- we need to figure out a way to trap the worm. Like yeh trapped her before!"
"The stone circle's broken, lass. Its magic's turned sour. There is no way t' trap her there again."
"Then we'll find a way to fix it!"
The temperature plunged. Hoar frost webbed its way up the base of the trees and across the floor of the clearing, and after it – Merida staggered back on her heel – after it came the slow sick crawl of that awful blackish mass. All brightness went out of the snow and a rotten smell filled the air, like a wounded animal trapped in a warren. She knew now that something awful was happening. It was Samhain's Eve. The veil between this world and the next was lifting, and more than the Cailleach was leeching through the gossamer-thin mantle into the world of the living. The Cailleach was drawing with her old forgotten things out of the earth, like poison from an infected wound. Bad air filled the grove. Merida's vision swam with it. So much so, she did not notice the giant worm rising over the trees above them, too big; too big to comprehend.
The Stoor Wyrm's head lolled on the black stem of its body, its one eye flashing crimson at the Nemeton, but the creature did not appear to fully see them. The Nemeton, whatever its power, hid them still.
Merida staggered, her mouth falling open as she stared helplessly up at the monster through the white vapour of her breath. The Bear Witch caught her arms in an iron grip once more.
"I'm sorry I have to ask this of you, lass, but if anyone can it's you. I have faith." The old woman paused, then hunched her shoulders slightly. "Weeell mostly. I'm not always right about these things, but!" She clapped a hand on Merida's shoulder. "I have at least 49% trust in you."
"That's still 51% doubt," Merida stammered, half paying attention. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the creature above them.
"Listen to me," the witch's voice turned softer, gentler. "You need to keep the Stoor Wyrm from finding the Snow Walker. That's the Cailleach's original body. If the two are reunited, the Cailleach will reform and the storm that claimed Clan MacGuffin's stronghold won't just cover Dunbroch. It'll mean winter has won. And she won't let a single living soul share her victory. Do you understand?"
"But, no-I.." Merida snapped to, her eyes growing wide with fear and panic. "You can't leave me – I can't do this alone! I-" Her chest felt tight and desperate. "You never even told me yer name!"
The Bear Witch chuckled. "If I ever had one, I don't remember it. But..." she paused, a fond distant look in her eyes. "...an old friend o' mine called me Bhu once. That'll do fer you, dearie."
Before Merida could react, the Bear Witch let go of her arms and shoved her, hard, towards the hangman's tree. At the same moment, the worm-like shadow of the Cailleach broke through the Nemeton's barrier, its eye flashing like hot coals and hooked teeth gleaming in its too-big head.
Arms wind-milling, Merida braced herself to hit the tree, but the impact never came. She fell and kept on falling, the world rushing up and up as if she were passing straight through it into nothingness. Everything towered over her as she plummeted; the branches of the hangman's tree, the returning blizzard, snow, ice, wind and pine – and finally the Bear Witch, small, alone and still smiling at her as the Stoor Wyrm bore down on her with open ripping jaws.
The last thing Merida saw was the faint blue lights trapped in the shadow's long body.
Then everything was darkness.
And as the veil rose to let the dead out, allowing flow and passage from one side to the other, so too did it allow the living in...
oOo
Five years ago, Conall MacGuffin had joined the King and his men on a hunt through these very woods. They had hunted a bear – a bear they had believed to have killed the King's beloved wife.
After the events of that fateful night, Conall had heard the Princess's fantastic tale told in full as she entertained a hall full of rapt listeners from each clan with the same vigour and enthusiasm her father had for storytelling. Songs were quickly penned by travelling bards and the Princess's story became famous throughout the kingdom; a legend of magic, witches and wisps.
But Conall MacGuffin never expected to see the cold blue glow of a willo-the-wisp for himself.
His borrowed grey mare shied as the first blue flame darted onto their path, beckoning him with a haunting reed-like whistle. It disappeared, only to reappear further into the woods, calling softly.
Conall gripped his reins, hesitating. Tales of willo-the-wisps were different in his part of the kingdom, considered capricious wee devils who more often delighted in leading you to your doom than your fate. But as the darkness of night deepened around him, Conall realised he had no idea where he was or where he was going. He had been following Merida's tracks through the trees, but they had disappeared under piles of fresh snow ages ago.
Twitching his borrowed horse around - Queen Elinor's own grey mare, Brigid - Conall leaned into his saddle and rode hard after the beckoning lights. One after the other the wisps lit up the mountainside, a constellation of pulsing blue flames.
A sense of urgency was growing in him. The storm that had been blowing so fierce had dropped almost instantly, but rather than hope, the strangeness of it filled him with worry. Conall didn't even stop to pause as his grey mare galloped through the ring of standing stones, leaping over the smoking remains of a pyre. Instinct, or some other force at work, told him to trust the wisps lighting up the woods into the mountainside.
He caught glimpses of his clansmen, however, looking lost and bewildered amongst the ancient solemn stones. Some sat on their haunches, staring blankly into a deep pit in the ground, or stood taking long swigs from their sheepskin flasks. Conall grit his teeth- he'd seen those looks before. It was the haunted look men wore after battle. For a brief moment he caught Dougal MacIntosh's eye. His friend's eyes were wide with fear and regret, and ringed with heavy shadows. Beside him, Dingwall was staring solemnly into a small fire, his gaze hard and clear as ice.
Conall didn't stop, pushing his horse to full froth into the woods. A feeling of cold dread was growing in his gut.
It wasn't until he heard the anguished voices of a search party cry out among the trees that Conall realised why he had not seen King Fergus or the Lords with the other men. They were looking for the Princess too.
Snow turned to an icy wet sleet that trickled down the back of his shirt, plastering his hair to his forehead. Thunder boomed far over the mountain range, but the storm had drawn back for now. There was no moonlight though, just the ghostly light of the pale blue flames flitting through the trees, leaping and whirling through snow-burdened thickets, ancient rocks and over frozen streams, bursting into life faster and faster until suddenly they stopped.
He knew he'd found her even before the last wisp blew out like a candle.
Conall MacGuffin was no stranger to grief. He had lost his beloved mother to a Norseman's raid and two of his young brothers to the great storm. Even his home was no more, buried under a mountain of snow and ice. Grief hit you harder than any fist could, ate away at the raw parts of you until you accepted it was just something that was always going to be by your side, like a second shadow. It wasn't something you forgot, especially if you had lost someone as early on in life as Conall had. He supposed he'd developed a sort of instinct for loss as a result.
Which is why he wasn't surprised when he found the body in the woods.
But it didn't stop the fresh grief from striking him like a knife wound to the chest.
Numbly, Conall dismounted from the Queen's mare and climbed a small knoll until he reached the base of a large oak tree. He didn't dare breathe. Didn't dare make a sound. A strange sort of paralysis had come over his nerves and he moved without feeling or thinking. Icy sleet turned to lashing rain as he finally knelt over the Princess's body.
Merida was slumped between two of the oak tree's roots, her blue eyes still open and her skin deathly pale and freezing to the touch. Frost caked her nose, lips and eyelashes. He reached out to pass a hand over her eyes, closing them for the last time. Then something in him finally broke and he curled around her, his broad shoulders shaking as he choked out a soundless sob. She was dead. The Princess – no, Merida was dead. His mind lashed out at the impossibility, but he'd been here before too recently. Conall knew the drill. There was no use fighting it, and the awful reality swamped him with grief. Still he couldn't bring himself to return with her just yet. Returning to the clans meant facing the reality of a lifetime without Merida. He wasn't ready. He wasn't sure he ever would be.
Conall could still hear King Fergus calling her name somewhere amongst the tall pine sentinels, his booming voice carrying for miles across the valley. His heart broke for his king and he knew it was selfish to keep Merida from her father any longer.
He scooped Merida's body into his arms just as he had done the night before, when she had fallen asleep in the kitchen by his side, curled into him. His heart ached so much he could barely stand. He held her tighter as the tears ran down his cheeks, begging her forgiveness and wishing he could go back to that night, that the two of them could stay in that place forever, just talking, laughing, telling stories, her hand laced in his like it was the most natural thing in the world. Now Merida would never look at him again. Never look at anyone again.
But as he got to his feet, a strange realisation cut through his grief. Horrified and confused, he stared at the body in his arms. Something wasn't right. The body Conall held in his arms was unnaturally light. It must have weighed no more than a corn doll. But that was impossible.
Blue light pulsed back into life at the bottom of the ancient oak, followed by another, and another, until they ringed the tree. Round and round they danced, circling the tree clockwise while chanting softly, like a southerly wind whistling through river reeds. Three times round they danced, glowing brighter and brighter with each circuit, before winking out of existence once more.
What had Merida said about wisps? They led you to your fate.
When he returned to the sight of the stone circle, King Fergus and the Lords had returned to prepare a proper search party for the missing Princess.
Lord MacGuffin was the first to run to him, swearing loudly in his relief at finding his son safe. But the Lord's joy was short-lived. He had to coax his son into releasing his protective grip on the Princess's body. Conall was white as a sheet, numb with shock and soaked through, but the idea of letting Merida go looked enough to break him. He felt his father squeeze his arm and speak soothing words, but neither fully registered.
"Son."
His felt his father's hand touch his head, gently. He looked up, tears filling his eyes, and his iron grip on Merida eased a little.
"Ah know, lad. Ah know," Lord MacGuffin hushed, his rich deep voice cutting through the shock. "C'mon. Her father needs t' see her, son."
Conall knew it was cowardly, but he was grateful that his father was the one to place the Princess's body into the King's arms, grateful that he didn't have to be the one faced with the begging look of lost confusion in Fergus's eyes before the awful truth hit him. He didn't think he would ever forget the sound the Bear King made afterwards. Conall could only stand between his father and Dougal, and watch as their King, who'd so fearlessly taken on Mor'du, crumple and break apart, Fergus's eyes agonized and bereft as he howled his grief into the damp quiet of night.
Neither his father nor the King appeared to have noticed the unnatural lightness of the Princess's body. But as they rode back to Castle Dunbroch in heavy silence, his own shock began to part, like mist, and as it did, clarity and a sense of certainty began to take root in his heart: the frozen body in the King's arms may look like the Princess, but that wasn't Merida.
oOo