Market-Month (first stop)

The embankment, as tall as the piers’ wooden stilts behind me, plunges steeply down to watery rock-pools below. It has sides clean cut by the highest tides and walls baked like plaster by the burning northern star; across the water, although it is too far for me to see properly, I know that the riverbank is flatter and less rugged. Mud mixes with sand on either side, creating fertile loam for the roots of rambling blackberries and gigantic willows to take hold. I have watched my brother fall countless times from the old, creaky boughs of the latter; its a wonder he still moves at all. As I near the golden-brown edge, my leather-bound toes tread warily, careful not to press where the corner is weakest (discerning eyes note the small sections already crumbled). A tumble or slip down the side could cause injury that Mother just hasn’t time for. Below, my eye catches the playful white wink of sunlight on a ripple, but I smile knowingly and think: not this time! These bones, the toneless tendons between and poorly muscles wrapped around them, are not strong enough to weather such mistakes. Nay, I will find a safe route down to the shimmering shallows. A little up stream I spot a familiar dip in the ridge, a worn track leading from the village’s outer rim, towards it. There is a weathered, old timber sign that stands like a sentinel on duty beside it that reads: The Stonesong’s best fishing, (though I know of better). I wonder vaguely as I pass beside it, whether Mother and Jasper’s meal had been caught down here; I’ve never been enamoured by the idea of trapping and killing, myself. It seems unnecessarily barbaric. Lifting, then planting my walking-stick in achingly slow succession, I begin my descent down the sturdy, beaten path between cliffs. The sand at the base feels hot (even to my well-covered feet), and slippery jaws swallow each step before I find better traction at the edge. Rocks of varying size and shape, huddle together in groups around trapped water bodies and as I peer from one to another along the way, I see small crustaceans flattened across each bed; presumably the water towards the surface would be boiling. Had I any better mobility in this cursed body, I would venture with cupped hands into their world to retrieve them, and set them free in the frigid watercourse nearby. Poor little souls… Stepping away, dispirited eyes turn toward the built bridge that spans the river’s width. Mother will pay the toll so we can cross it in the morning and we will follow the road, then, all the way north to Sidhe. A flicker of movement between it and I diverts my notice though, and my narrowing gaze lowers to find the wetted-red pelt of an animal (I think), paddling on towards me. The guards at each end of the tollway do not expect payment from The Greatwood’s lovely fauna, in fact I’ve seen them offer food, so it is a big surprise indeed, to see the fox, lug its saturated self out onto the sand nearby to where I watch. The creature’s amber eyes glance upon me, causing me to shift as though it is me who behaves unusually; but suddenly it is not a fox’s face set around them. I have told my self before: it is wild, Hazel, only another beast, and my thoughts unexpectedly recall the strange white fox in Wildwood, that had led Isuma astray. What if- Human lips curl into a grin. Beneath it flashes golden lights against the bright of the sun and I stand motionless, disbelieving, but not quite shocked (for my kin do possess this inherent ability to shift). Perhaps that is the reason I'm not immediately compelled to flee (what a spectacle that would be). Instead I smile back broadly- But this cracks and falls. My mind states aloud as these astonished eyes travel up - and up, and up: “You’re no Fae…"