hag

“All right,” Aruna said, as Hans yawned. “Now you must be very tired. It is late and time for growing children to be in bed. We can sort everything out in the morning.

Greta felt agreeable, but she had one last thought. Perhaps it was Aruna’s age that brought it to mind. “Mother Hulda,” she said.

“Oh?” Aruna raised her eyebrows and eyed Greta suspiciously. “Do you know the good Mother? She visits for tea quite regularly.”

“I know her a little,” Greta hedged her thoughts, though she was not sure why. “Has she been by recently?” Greta asked.

“Why, just two or three days ago she was here and we had a grand time,” Aruna said.

That lie helped bring Greta back to reality enough to know she needed help. “Agreed.” She heard the word clearly in her head, and then Greta vanished from that time and place and Danna, the mother of all the Celtic gods, sat in her place, and left up a perfect glamour of Greta so the hag, Aruna, would be no wiser. Danna saw the hovel for exactly what it was, and in fact had to lower herself a bit to see where their beds were supposed to be. They were in the oven, of course.

“Hans.” Danna, looked and sounded exactly like Greta and stopped her brother from going straight to bed. “Girls first,” she said aloud and made sure he had to obey. She walked to the oven and started to climb in but quickly climbed right out again. “The fire went out,” she said. “It’s too cold in there. I can’t sleep.”

“What?” Aruna looked dumbfounded and she had to see for herself. Danna grabbed Han’s hand and suddenly he saw what she saw. As the hag poked her head into the fire box, Danna traded places in time with Bodanagus of the Nervii. He came dressed in the armor of the Nameless One, the armor which had once been his, and he did not pause before he spoke.

“Push,” he told Hans, and though Hans came up with his hands ready to push, essentially Bodanagus, in a moment of near Herculean strength, bent down beneath the hag’s butt and flipped the old woman into the oven. He slammed the door.

“Why did we just push Grandma into the oven?” Hans asked, still very confused.

“Not grandma,” Bodanagus explained. “A hag, a grendal. Such creatures have many names. Something pounded on the iron door of the oven, and it came with enough force to make dents in the door. Bodanagus picked up a log and opened the firebox. As he did, a hand sprang out of the box and tried to grab him. Wyrd flew out of its’ sheath in a flash and Bodanagus cut the hand off, cleanly. Even severed from the body, it still clutched at them. Bodanagus used the tip of the sword to fling the hand back into the fire while Hans quickly opened and closed the fire door. The creature shortly stopped pounding and began to scream. That was his cue.

Bodanagus grabbed the bucket of water from which the hag had drawn their tea. It still sat mostly full. He knew this had to be quick. He got Hans to open the oven door as he threw the water in. Then they closed the door again, though they almost did not get it closed in time. The scream of the hag became an unearthly sound. Bodanagus did his best to cover Han’s ears, but the screaming went on for a while. Hans buried his face in the armor. He recognized the armor and the sword, even if he did not exactly recognize Bodanagus. When it was over, Bodanagus trade places again with Danna. She had the power to remove the spell from Hans completely. She also removed the standing glamour from the place, which otherwise might have continued for decades.

“Wow,” Hans said. The real hovel had no roof. Only two walls stood, and the oven, of course, with its high chimney. The field of grain no longer grew there. In fact, they hardly saw a meadow. Only the encroaching forest grew. The food also had all gone, except for Hans who proceeded to vomit out whatever he ate. Danna made double sure that the beast died, and then threw some magic into the air, not unlike fairy dust, and traded places with Greta so the magic could fall on her. Thus, she set herself completely free of the same enchantment, and then Greta vomited a little, but not nearly like Hans.

Greta checked the sky. It proved shortly after noon. They had to move on. She had forgotten about the wolf and wished the hag had not brought it up. Greta collected their things, which still sat on the forest floor where they left them. She looked again. Perhaps it turned one o’clock. She had to get Hans moving, even if it would be slow going as long as he felt sick. It became slow after that as well while they climbed the hill that Hans had seen from the treetop. And all that while they moved in relative silence. Hans did not feel much like talking, and Greta felt angry enough to scream, and for several reasons.

She could not even speak to Hans. If he wasn’t so sick, she could have killed him. Just as well he did not feel like speaking.

At the same time, the question of Hans haunted her. What good was having a god on your side if he wouldn’t do anything for you? The magic of the hag proved stronger than anything she had ever encountered, but she had the distinct feeling that if she had not caught the perfect grandmother in a lie, which in effect blunted the spell, all those other lifetimes she lived would have let her be lunch. Even then, she did not feel sure anyone would have helped her if she did not ask. What good was having a god on her side?

That was not the only thing that haunted her. At times during their climb, her fears almost overwhelmed her anger. Storytelling was one thing the Woman of the Ways did for the people. She knew most of the stories of the haunted forest, only now they took on a reality she never expected, and some of the stories were very frightening, indeed.

In the end, she settled on being upset. The churning in her stomach did not help.

From the hilltop, Greta could see well enough to get her bearings. Ahead of them, smaller hills pushed into the gray, eastern horizon. To the south, the hills softened more, though it still looked like forest for as far as she could see. She knew the road lay way beyond her sight. West, behind her, she saw more trees. They had moved far enough into the woods by then so she could see nothing of Boarshag. All she could see was trees and more trees. Even the ruins where the hag lived blended into the forest and vanished from sight. She supposed if she really tried, she could have found the now smokeless chimney sticking up from between the trees, but she chose not to try and turned to look north. She felt fairly certain she could make out the Sylvan River. It appeared to be running due west. Somewhere much further east it had to turn in a great arc to end up twenty miles north of Ravenshold, but for the time being, she knew that as long as they kept the river to their left hand they would do well.

Hans stopped eating long enough to smile. He had a red berry ring around his mouth which made him look like a toddler. Greta got so mad at him, she felt like wringing his neck, but she also managed a smile for the old woman.

“My name is Aruna,” the woman said, hesitantly.

“I’m Greta,” she said. “And my pig’s name is Hansel.” She turned to her brother. “Stop, Hans. For Heimdahl’s sake, stop eating the poor woman’s food.”

“It’s quite all right,” Aruna said. “The old ones won’t be coming today, alas. All my baking was for nothing, unless you enjoy it. I would much rather it be eaten than thrown out.”

“The old ones?” Greta asked.

“Yes, Gretal, child. But come now, eat what you like. I am especially proud of my tarts. Come, come.”

Tarts were her favorite. Greta had not noticed any until the woman mentioned them. She picked one up, carefully. It reeked of magic. “Thank you,” Greta said. “Tell me about the old ones.” She pretended to eat and the pretense appeared good enough for the moment.

“The old ones. Now, that is a long story.” Aruna smiled a toothy smile. “Come, let us go inside and I will make some tea and tell you all about it.”

“How did you come to live alone in the forest like this?” Greta asked, stalling their progress.

“Now, that is another long story,” Aruna said. “It would be much better told inside where the sun is not so bright and hot. I have worked hard this morning and I would love to rest my weary feet.”

“Yes, work,” Greta said, not giving up. “How did you manage a field of ripe grain this early in the spring?”

Aruna handed her a sweet pie and indicated that she should help herself. “A gift of the gods for this poor, old woman,” she said. “No matter how much I cut in a day, by the next morning the field is full and ripe again.”

Greta happened to know the ancient gods were no longer available to make such gifts, and they had not been around for nearly a hundred and fifty years. “Which god should be so generous, if I may ask?” Greta tried to sound pleasant and conversational. Aruna frowned.

“Abraxas,” she said, drawing the “s” out in a true serpent-like manner. He was not one of the northern gods, nor any of the gods that Greta knew, and yet the name sounded vaguely familiar. Had she come across the name in the writings in Mother Hulda’s barn? While she puzzled, she took a bite of the sweet pie without thinking.

“Good,” Aruna said. “Now poor Hansel is getting very thirsty. Isn’t that so?”

“Yeah I am.” Hans spoke with his mouth full.

“Come in. It is still early spring and gets dark early.” Aruna said, and Greta almost believed her. “You don’t want to get caught out doors at night with the wolf prowling about.”

“Dear, no,” Greta said and put down her pie. Aruna struck a chord there that Greta could not deny.

The minute Greta stepped inside, she knew what was wrong but she did not seem to have enough power to do anything about it. In her mind’s eye, she saw a dirt floored hovel with stones and stumps for furniture, and no great artifacts of any kind apart from the tremendous oven; but then she saw a quaint, wood-floored home with a nice table and chairs, flowers in a vase, a neatly made bed in the corner, a fireplace in place of the firebox, and above it, where the oven had been, two small beds in a little loft, just right for her and Hansel.

“Old ones?” Greta thought if she talked it might help break the spell, but that became a mistake.

“Quite right,” Aruna said. Her voice sounded so kind and enchanting, it drew them in more deeply. “A little conversation helps grow the appetite.” She began to reach into all sorts of cupboards, cabinets and pantries and she pulled out roasts that were steaming hot, fresh baked bread, still warm, every kind of cheese Greta could imagine, greens and fresh fruit that paid no attention to the season, and of course, every kind of sweet that might appear on anyone’s menu. “My,” she said. “We have quite an appetite for children.” But Greta felt the woman referred to their imagination, not their eating habits. She suspected that she saw one thing, Hans saw something else, and only the woman saw what was real.

“Old ones,” Greta said. She hung on to that thought, and she would not give it up, even when Aruna looked at her crossly. Aruna smiled again and poured Greta some tea in a porcelain cup, though for a moment it looked like dirty water in a chipped crockery bowl.

“Drink up dear Gretal child,” she said. “You will like this tea. It is a special blend from my own garden.” That did not inspire Greta to drink. Greta still resisted, and Aruna knew it. Greta looked up with some insistence in her eyes.

“All right, dearie,” Aruna said, and she started to talk to take Greta’s mind off fighting the spell. “The old ones were the first people in the land. They lived here long before the yellow hairs came.” Greta understood there were people in the area going back to the stone age, but there were certainly people around before her own Dacians. In truth, her people took the land themselves barely two hundred years before Trajan brought up his army. Maybe three hundred years, but it remained recent history, just a blink in time. She believed, though, that the earlier inhabitants had long since been driven away or assimilated with her own people. She could not imagine a whole enclave of them living apart for so many years.

Aruna stroked Greta’s long, light blond hair. She would have stroked Greta’s cheek if Greta had not pulled back, sharply. Aruna let her hand drop and went back to speaking. “They live in the forest, dear,” she said, as if reading Greta’s mind. She wove a twisted tale. “I am a widow of the rebellion. I married on the very day hostilities broke out. My dearest love was killed before we could even share our wedding bed. I wanted to die, too, but I did not have the courage to take my own life. Instead, I ran into the forest in such tears and grief I thought the agony would never go away. But here, I thought, in this haunted land, some demon or beast would kill me quickly and my misery would be at an end.

“In this place, my great god Abraxas found me. He began to heal me in ways I never imagined. And then he brought the old ones to find me, and they fed me, but kept a close watch on me to be sure I came to no harm. I prayed to Abraxas every day. He is the great god who shines light in the darkness and shows the darkness hidden in the light, and I grew stronger every day, until at last, I could go about without fear. I could not go home, because everyone I knew had died. And yet, I did not belong in this place, either. The old ones left me here, half-way between their world and the outside world, and I have lived here to this day.”

Greta sipped her tea and thought what a sad and tragic story. Hans shed a few tears. This poor old grandmother had lived such a hard life, it would only be right and fair to show her some kindness.

************************

MONDAY

Don’t miss R5 Greta, the Fire and the Dark. It may be time for the oven.

Happy Reading, while you can…