Chapter 19

They were chasing her. 

Elaine was running through the forest, away from her pursuers. Her lungs burned as she fled, skipping over broken stones, leaping over rotten logs. She could hear them close in behind her, and she ran faster. Her legs ached with the effort, and she looked around wildly for a place to hide. She could hear them now, their ragged breath matching her own. They were taunting her, flinging curses and promises to catch alike into the cold autumn air. 

Faster, faster, she thought. I have to run faster. 

She did not know how she would escape. They were bigger than her, stronger, and faster. She knew that they would catch her, do horrible things to her once caught. 

She paused for rest at a tree, her breath turning to mist in front of her. A small part of her thought she looked like a dragon and wished for the ability to breathe fire. 

Snap!

Elaine took off running again. She had a horrible stitch in her side. Elaine was running so hard that she feared she might vomit. She dogged around trees and splashed through the shallow part of the stream. Still, her pursuers always followed, never flagging. 

Just go away! She thought. 

She had gotten turned around. She did not know the way back to her village, and cold fear gripped her heart. She had begun to run anywhere just to get away from the gang following her. 

Then, through a break in the trees, she saw the comforting sight of the cottages. Smoke twisted and curled through the chimneys, and she felt enormously relieved.

Just a few more steps to go, she thought. 

She was so focused on running through the break in the trees, that she did not see the hole in front of her. 

Leaves and dead pieces of wood obscured the opening of a deep well. It was no longer in use, but it still had water. Elaine ran headlong into it.

"Anaiah!" she screamed as she plunged through pitch darkness and splashed into the water below. 

Water shot up her nose, and into her throat and choked her. Coughing and sputtering, Elaine tried to pull herself to the surface. It was so dark that she could not see, and she began to panic. She thrashed harder, and she grasped for something, anything, to grab onto. 

She could swim, but barely. As she felt along the slimy walls of the well, she found a brick that jutted out more than the rest, and she latched onto it. She tried to catch her breath, but each inhale felt like the stab of a knife. 

She looked up and saw a trio of boys looking down into the well. She could see the light of day, but just barely. The morning sun was too weak to let in much light. 

"Ha-ha! Look! Elaine fell in the well!" said one. 

"Help me! Please!" she cried. 

"Fell in the well, fell in the well," they chanted in their childish, sing-song way. 

"Please get someone!" she screamed. 

A bug skittered across her hand, and she flung it off, repulsed and frightened. 

Please don't let there be rats here, or frogs, she thought. 

"Why would we do that?" said another boy. "It looks like you are comfortable down there. We could leave you for a few days."

"No!" screamed Elaine. "Please! Somebody help!"

The bullies all laughed and began to pelt her with small stones. Each time they made a small splash in the water, they gave each other high-fives. Every time they hit Elaine and she cried out, they cheered. 

"Stop it, that hurts!" she said. 

"Stop it, that hurts!" they replied in unison, mocking her. 

Elaine began to cry, tears streaming down her face. 

Suddenly, the boys heard a sound. They turned to each other, spoke so that Elaine could not hear, and raced off to the town.

"Wait!" cried Elaine, her voice echoing in the well. "Don't leave me!"

But the woods remained silent and still. The boys had left, and Elaine felt the iron grip of fear around her heart. 

Her breathing was just as ragged in the well as it was when she was running. She did not know if anyone would find her. No one came to this well anymore; its use was long past expired. She wondered if she might die or drown, waiting for someone to find her. 

Something slithered across her leg, and she shrieked and thrashed. 

"Please, somebody, help me!" she cried, the sound tearing her throat. She screamed so loudly that the sound echoed in her ears, hurting them. 

She cried out again and again, each time becoming more desperate. 

Hours passed like that. She felt hopeless, at times crying and others yelling up into the void. Her fingers and hands hurt from clutching the brick. She shivered against the frigid water. It seemed all heat had been sucked out of her body. 

I will never get out of here, she thought. No one will come to save me.

She felt creatures touching her skin, and each time she yelled and tried to fling them off. She might have stayed there for days, if not for a passing woodcutter. 

She had been so tired from screaming, that she was about to give up. She yelled once more and felt as though she would never be able to scream again. 

"Ho there!" said a deep voice. "It seems you are in a bit of a tight spot."

Elaine looked up and a man with brown hair and a kind face looked down upon her. 

"Help!" cried Elaine. "Please help!"

"Right away, miss!" said the man. He unwound the rope from which the bucket was attached. He lowered the rope slowly, instead of tossing it down, to avoid banging Elaine on the head. 

"Grab on to the bucket. I will pull you out," said the man, gathering his strength. 

Elaine clutched the bucket as if it were her mother's arms. Slowly, the man pulled her up; even for a woodcutter, lifting a child from a well was no small feat. When Elaine reached the lip of the well, the man grabbed her arms and lifted her the rest of the way. 

"Poor thing, you look like you are about to freeze to death," said the man. He took off his cloak and wrapped it around her. "Let us get some hot food and drink in your belly, a warm bath, and you will be right as rain. Can you show me where you live?"

Elaine collapsed against the ground, grateful for the feel of hard earth under her feet. She looked up at the man. He had auburn hair, a sharp, pointed chin, and two sparkling eyes. 

"Renard?" she asked. "How did you know where to find me?"

"I am always watching you," he said. 

"But that is impossible," Elaine whispered. 

"Remember, I told you to never panic," said Renard. "Now, Elaine, it's time to wake up. Wake up. Wake up..."

"Elaine, it is time to wake up. Wake up," said Elizabeth, her mother. 

Elaine's eyes snapped open. 

It had been a dream. 

She lay in her bed, her childhood memory still seared against her retinas. She could still remember the crunch of the leaves under her feet as she ran, the smell of the woods in the cold autumn air, the singing of the birds. She had only wanted to go into the forest that day to pick flowers and search for leprechauns. Her mother had told her stories about how if you caught a leprechaun, it would have to give you a pot of gold. Legends said that they lived among the trees and mushrooms, so if you found a circle of white mushrooms, then you were close to finding one. 

She had been safe until then, secure in her world, in the way only a six-year-old can be secure: nothing that bad had happened to her yet. When she fell into the well, her whole world had cracked. She had learned that if she went into the woods, anything could happen. Bad things could befall her, evil boys chased you; even in the woods, there was the possibility of drowning. It shattered her poor, little childish heart, to think that there were some situations that not even Mother or Father could get her out of.

She recalled how the bullies had taunted her, made her feel small and worthless. All of them had grown up together, and they were still as mean and brutish as ever, but Elaine stayed clear of them. She was no longer afraid of bullies. 

She sighed, and got out of bed. The air had turned colder again, just like in Elaine's dream. Autumn was just around the corner. The harvest from this year's crop was in, and Elaine and her family had plenty of work once again, even enough to cover whatever tax increase the king imposed or whatever bully knight came their way. 

Throwing on some clothes, and an extra cloak for warmth, she made her way to the kitchen. She struck a match and lit the oil lamps so that she could see in the dark, before the sun had risen. 

The kitchen was illuminated by the small light. Pots and pans sung neatly from hooks, or were stacked in organized rows throughout the room. Ingredients for bread and desserts were closed tightly in jars, to avoid rants, insects, and other pests. Elaine loved this part of the day, when the kitchen was still clean, as opposed to the explosion of flour, yeast, and dough it would become by the end of the day. 

Jasper came up to her and rubbed against her leg, begging silently for food. Elaine took some chicken from last night's supper and gave it to him in a small bowl. Looking at Jasper, she thought of Renard. She wondered how he was doing and whether he was still as sarcastic and playful as ever. She wondered if his eyes were still the same flaming orange that matched his hair. She missed him, despite herself. He was a hard teacher, but a good friend. He had taught her things about herself that she had barely known. She remembered their night of music and dancing, and she blushed to think that he might have had as much fun as she did. 

Elaine got to work mixing the ingredients for bread. She put wood in the oven, struck a match to light the kindling, and worked to fan the flames. Shutting the door, she let the oven heat up, glad for the extra warmth. In summers, the kitchen was brutally hot, but in autumn and winter, Elaine was thankful for the large fire. 

Cracking eggs into a large bowl, she thought of how well her family was now. She had come back, and they adored her more than ever before. She was able to make their lives easier with simple little spells here and there: a trick of washed dishes for her mother, making the letters bigger on the ledgers for her father, making Daniel fly around the woods for entertainment. 

Elaine took down a measuring bowl and filled it with water. Concentrating, she thought of sugar, light brown, and wonderfully sweet. The feeling of vibration in her arms and the spells came naturally to her now, the words flowing from her lips. The water shimmered, then turned harder, more solid, and darkened to tan. In a few seconds, Elaine had turned the water into sugar. 

The precious sweet crystals were still extremely hard to come by in the kingdom. The king still took as many products and hoarded them from the people than ever before. Still, with the ability to make sugar, the family bakery had enough money to repair the roof that Elaine had broken accidentally by magic, and even invest in a second oven. 

Waving a hand over more water, Elaine turned it into cinnamon. Even with these two additions, the town lined up and spent what few pennies they had on a sweet treat. They no longer survived on bread alone; they could buy pies, cinnamon rolls, and cakes for special occasions. The morale rose among the people of the village. It was not much but having something special like sugar made everyone a little bit happier. 

The villagers had accepted Elaine's talents with magic with very little fanfare. Everyone had assumed that magic had died out in their area, but no one was really surprised when it appeared once again. 

"That is magic for you," they said. "It turns up at the oddest places, among the least expected."

It did not hurt that Elaine helped her village like never before with her magic. When she could, she helped repair roofs, clear the ground of refuse and garbage, and even erected a wall around their little hamlet. (That took a couple of weeks, though, with the strongest men, Elaine admitted to herself.) She could levitate to high places on roofs that would be hazardous for anyone else to go. 

She turned what would have been months of labor into a day's work. Together with the elders of the town, she built systems to make the river flow into their village and carry waste away. She built paved roads, so that people no longer had to go tramping through the mud. With a wave of her hand, she could lift stones and boulders that not even ten men could carry. 

Carefully pouring in the correct amount of yeast, Elaine still marveled at the wonders a simple thing like yeast could do. Although she had magic in her veins, things like yeast making bread rise or flowers growing in a garden were the real magic. 

The villagers not only accepted Elaine for her talents in making the town cleaner. She could also heal minor injuries or illnesses. She was no doctor—sometimes the injury was beyond her capacity, but if it were something as simple as a cut from a knife or a small chest cold, she could heal them. 

Indeed, the villagers knocked on her door, asking for her help, when some of them had never spoken to her before. They would show her their problem: a broken tooth, or a cracked finger bone. She would lay her hands on them, bringing up a deep reserve of magic, for dealing with humans and all their glorious complexity was not easy. She would chant, envisioning the flesh healing and stitching itself back together, and after a few hours, the person would be healed. 

Elaine had to collapse on the bed after these episodes, for healing the body is no light burden. Things that would normally take weeks to heal naturally took an enormous amount of energy. For that reason, Elaine did not heal much and told the villagers so. They were so grateful for any amount of help that they did not swarm her too often with their burdens. 

Too often. 

Elaine began to knead the bread. She fell into her familiar rhythm and thought about her magic. 

It feels good to help people, she thought. Maybe it is not exactly how I thought I might use it, but it is still good. 

Still, ever since she had returned, Elaine had felt a small, insistent tugging on her heart. She longed to use her magic for some greater purpose other than her village. She wanted to be the hero of a minstrel's tale, riding out and saving the day. Thinking about all Margaret had shown her in the mirror, she swiftly shut down these thoughts. 

If I help, I may become what I fear most, she thought. 

The maze still haunted her. She had glimpsed a vision of the future she never wanted to come to pass. It was what kept her from going out and finding the girls who Margaret had mentioned. She said there were five. Five others who had powers like herself. Together, they could take down the king. 

Six girls against an entire army and a mad tyrant? She thought. Now that is a fairy story.

Even so, conditions under the king were getting worse and worse. Traveling musicians and merchants brought tales of horror from surrounding villages, and even further away in the capital. People were being murdered indiscriminately; thefts and house break-ins from knights were becoming all too common. Anyone who said so much as a whisper against the king quickly disappeared and was never heard from again. 

The best that Elaine could do was keep her head down, help her family and her village, and hope that circumstances improved. 

Out of the stillness of the morning, there was a pounding at the back door. 

Elaine's heart skipped a beat, and she dropped the dough onto the table. The pounding continued; it seemed as fast as the pounding of Elaine's heart. 

"Please!" whispered a voice from behind the door. "Help me!"

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