Race to Haygarth’s hollow.
A full moon shone brightly within the starless sky, surrounded by glowing whisps of clouds gathered around its base.
The shrouded luminance cast creeping shadows across the land. On this eerily silent night, not even the crickets dared to sing. The foreboding atmosphere is a haunting herald of misfortune.
A young woman cuts across an open field, ebony hair streaming behind her. She was a smudge against the green.
Ragged breaths force puffs of frosted air to billow around her fair skin. She falters, gripping her rounded abdomen as she regains her footing. Dogs were baying in the distance; their cries seemed almost a sin to disturb the quiet. Yet they served as a steady reminder of her purpose, spilling new strength into her spent bones.
Just a little further.
“I must make it to Haygarth’s hollow.” Her thoughts clattered within her mind.
The sharp kicks of her unborn child against her ribs fueled her panic. Pain rips through her sides, but she continues. Silent tears escape her eyes, burning trails of ice as they nearly freeze on their paths down her chapped cheeks.
Branches tug at her hair and rip her exposed arms as she dives into yet another patch of bushes at the edge of the field.
“Please.” She whispers a silent prayer into the darkness. “Not yet.” She breathes through strangled breaths. Gripping her stomach, she wills her child to stay put for just a while longer.
The trees seem to grow denser now, and uncertainty grips her, fear smudging her sense of direction and seeding doubts in her mind—had she gone the wrong way?
Still, she carries on in a desperate haze, exhaustion threatening to trip her bloodied feet. She’s out of time, and she knows it. Only fate knew if she had chosen the correct path.
Then, like an oasis, the tree line breaks from the unending murk of the obscuring shadows.
A cry of relief escapes her lips as her eyes fall on the boundary line that glows softly before her, marking Haygarth’s territory.
But her happiness is short-lived.
The pain comes again, worse this time, increasing in strength and progression as her muscles roll and clench.
She falls to a squatting position, ripping her tattered dress even further along her crimson-painted thighs. Her fingers claw beneath her,sinking into damp, dead leaves and coating her skin in mud.
Her agonized screams pierced the night before being joined by a single startled cry from her baby.
With nothing left to give, she curls around her baby and waits for the inevitable. They will be here soon; the dogs grow louder as they pick up her scent.
“Please.” She whispers to no one. Her hand stretched towards the woods.
If only she had the strength to get back up and carry them to the sanctuary of the hollow.
No... If only she had worked up the courage to escape sooner.
Then maybe she could have saved them both.
Bitter tears slip down her cheeks, plopping on the baby’s forehead. The child doesn’t stir but peers at its mother instead, with an intelligence far beyond her mere minutes of life.
“Forgive me, my sweet Evanora.” She sobs.
“Why have you come here, Wiccan?” A gravelly voice rasps from the shadows, interrupting the moment.
Too far gone to be startled, the mother raises her gaze to meet the strangers glowing green orbs.
Hope flares in her chest.
“My child. Please. You must save my baby.” She whimpers.
After a moment of silence cut short by the barking that drew ever closer, the stranger approaches the sodden pair.
Quickly fading as she was, the mother flinches as the stranger comes into view. She was not surprised at who she saw. After all, she had run to her hollow.
Even so, she had not expected Haygarth herself to come and investigate who lay at her doorstep.
Haygarth was a powerful spirit, one whose essence had long outlasted most of her fellowkind by generations. She was as timeless as the woods she dwelled within, and she didn’t treat the mortally bound kindly.
As such, her woods were widely avoided, scaring off most men before they ever passed under her foliage. It had been the perfect place to hide had only the frighted woman acted sooner.
Haygarth scrutinized the mortal at her feet with little interest. Her calculating gaze narrowed upon noticing the blood-soaked newborn clutched tightly to her breast.
Annoyance prickles at the old spirit as she leans down and catches sight of the reserved infant.
The urge to hold the baby itches at her wrinkled palms unpleasantly.
“Damned curse” She spits; she had never liked kids, not in life, and certainly not in death.
But the fates enjoy irony.
Thus, her debt for immortality was specifically crafted for her particular distaste. She was drawn to the plight of young souls.
Her heart softens slightly as her gaze shifts from the dark-haired, blue-eyed baby to her mother.
She had once been beautiful—that much Haygarth could deduce. But abuse and malnutrition have taken their toll. She now lay in her bloody mess, shriveled and dying.
A shell of what she was.
And they called Haygarth evil?
Ha!
But Haygarth had little room in her cold heart for much sympathy. The cursed debt she owed, however, offered the woman before her, at the very least, her dying wish.
Without a word of agreement, or anything else, for that matter. She plucks the baby from her mother’s arms.
Left with no other option, the mother weakly allows the forest spirit to take the small baby.
She no longer has the strength to lift her head, not even to say goodbye to the blessing that she will never get to know.
Regret and bitter sorrow twist her features.
She mourns the smiles she will never see.
The first words she will never hear
Little hands she won’t hold.
And tears she will be unable to wipe.
She watches Haygarth disappear into the shadows she had steeped herself in. Taking the woman’s heart along with her.
“Evanora; her name is Evanora.” Her voice cracks barely above a whisper, but she hopes the spirit heard her.
Perhaps her child would at least have one thing from her mother, who desperately loved her.
“Over here!” A man shouts, appearing beside her suddenly; she had not noticed they had caught up. Knelling down, he scoops her into his arms. Her head rolls freely at the neck, relaxing all tension.
“Shit. Bring the healer,” he snaps.
Several men and their dogs pour into the clearing but stop before coming any closer.
“She’s already had the baby.” The man who held her announces
“Damnit, the boss won’t be happy about that. Where is it?” Another man asks.
“Gone, taken into Haygarth’s hollow, if I had to guess. That crazy spirit is known for snatching kids.”
“The boss is going to have our heads. Especially if he loses his wife too.” Another hisses.
“Fuck! Where the hell is that healer?”
A young woman is pushed forward; she rocks on her heels slightly, searching for balance.
And then her eyes fell on the poor soul crumpled on the ground.
“Oh no, what have you done?” Her words are barely audible through her emotions. It was clear that she cared for her patient.
She drops to her knees, placing a hand on either side of her friend’s face.
“I’ll get you all fixed up. Just hold on a little longer.”
The dying woman begs her old friend with her eyes.
Please let me die.
Be it grief or self-preservation that forced the healer’s hand, the woman may never know. But as magic filled her veins, stitching her flesh and replenishing her blood supply, she knew her friend would not heed her request.
Her eyes searched the tree line one last time, but she found nothing.
A small smile tugs at her lips, accompanied by a river of tears.
Evanora was free.
