THE BLACKBERRY WITCH: chapter 24

All chapters of The Blackberry Witch

XXIV. Redemption

Thomas jumped to his feet and peered into the pool. Mindful of the slick rocks at the edge, he craned over as far as he could, staring into the rippling depths with narrowed eyes. Cathán scampered up his shoulder and clung to a tuft of Thomas’s hair, leaning out over the water.

The ripples faded. They left a still dark surface, impenetrable and black in the shadows of the grotto.

“Ableil!” Thomas called. His words came back to him twice and again, made rocky by the interior of the cave and the smoothness of the pool.

Cathán and Finlay tried shouting the odd creature’s name. Avery whistled. Elwood barked, even lapped at the water experimentally before deciding it wasn’t to his taste. The shaggy dog barked again and flopped back down.

“Ableil!” Thomas tried again, then sat against Elwood’s haunches and lay his head back. “What do we do now?”

“That’s the shell you need, of course,” Finlay said. He stretched out his lanky figure along the rim of the pool, heedless of the puddled water, his eyes staring at the ceiling. “It couldn’t be any other. You need the shell that once was Gilroy’s heart, and it’s down at the bottom of the pool with Ableil. I can’t imagine she’ll be willing to part with it, not easily. I like her, though, and she seems reasonable enough. Perhaps we can barter?”

“Perhaps,” Cathán replied dubiously. “But what would you barter for the heart of a true love? And yet I’d be loath to attempt to steal it or deceive her in some way. She’s certainly suffered enough.”

Elwood gave them a small bark.

“A noble offer, certainly, you shaggy thing,” Avery said. “Though I hardly think you could make it all the way down to the bottom, not without filling your lungs up with that stale rocky water, if you’re willing to try it might be our best option. Perhaps Ableil will pity you.”

Elwood whined, curling around to face Thomas, and panted such that the hair over his eyes blew back. He stared at the boy from Mídhel with those startling blue eyes and barked again.

Thomas patted Elwood’s shaggy head. “Thanks, boy, but you don’t have to swim down there. We’ll find another way.” The dog settled back down and Thomas pressed his cheek into his fur, still scratching behind his ears. “I can’t think of any way to get the shell ourselves, and Ableil doesn’t seem to be listening.”

They sat that way for a few minutes. A natural kind of quiet pervaded the grotto: only the drip-drip-dripping of water, the gentle lap of its wake on the stones, the languid pant and loll of the shaggy dog, the tapping of Avery’s beak against curious parts of the cavern walls. Then Thomas stood.

“Ableil might not be listening,” he said, taking a few steps away from the pool, “but if those trees outside were any indication, I think Gilroy might be. And everyone needs some kindness. Even someone who tried to poison a Tinker and was cursed by his serpent-witch wife. We’ve all made some mistakes, haven’t we?”

Thomas addressed the grotto itself, turning his face to the ceiling and speaking in a clear voice: “Gilroy the king’s servant! I hope you can hear me; I hope you’re listening. Thank you for letting us come into your grotto to speak with Ableil. I’m Thomas from Mídhel. I’m sorry you were turned into a cave. And I’m sorry Ableil was turned into a creature, though she does seem very capable still. Your red hair outside is a lovely shade, by the way; I hope that brings you some joy.

“We’d like to help you, if we can. I think everyone merits some kindness. Would you please pass along our message to Ableil? We’re willing to help you and her if she’ll receive it. I don’t know how, but we’re willing to try.”

Thomas could feel a low rumble begin beneath his feet. It was oddly pleasant, the vibrations rippling the pool and bouncing particles of dust here and there; it didn’t feel like an earthquake, but rather like the snoring of a dog or the purring of a cat, a gentle rumble and comforting.

The rumbling continued for a moment and faded. Only a few moments later, the surface of the pool rippled again, and a sleek furry head emerged, peering at them from the murky waters.

“I don’t know how you think you can help,” Ableil said, “but what do you mean about everyone meriting kindness? That’s a rare sentiment.”

Thomas returned to the edge of the pool and sat between Finlay and Elwood. “I’ve just been thinking about how everyone makes mistakes and everyone needs a little kindness shown them to be better. I know the truth of this perhaps better than most, for I’ve been offered a great deal of kindness that I didn’t deserve. I was invited to the great feast of Luchamhá—I was even the Feaster of Honor. I’ve made friends with mice and ravens and Vathca and golden eagles and dogs and fishermen. I’ve been helped by the ghost of a dead knight, by an old wizard in my village, by warriors and heroes.

“I was even introduced to the Three of Shadows, a secretive cabal of sages overseeing the forest,” Thomas added, smiling at both Avery and Cathán. “And I didn’t deserve any of that kindness, not really. But that’s not what being kind is about. You show it because it’s right. So maybe we don’t all merit kindness, but we all need it, and that’s a good enough reason to give it.”

“Thomas isn’t the only one to have been shown great kindness of late,” Cathán said. “He himself was very kind to the First Legion of the Thistledown Kingdom when we fought the Nathaia Iór.”

“And he’s a gracious audience for my tales,” said Avery, “even when they are, perhaps, too much for him to comprehend all at once.” The raven ducked his glossy head against his chest. “He tolerates me, too, which is kindness indeed.”

“I’ve only known Thomas a short time, but he’s proven himself a kind friend,” added Finlay. “He was willing to try my eel-skin soup, even though I could see he was quite dubious about the prospect. And I’d wager he’d’ve said he liked it even if he hadn’t, which would have been a great kindness itself.”

Elwood barked.

The smooth skin above Ableil’s shining eyes wrinkled together. “Kindness indeed, shaggy dog.” She swam over to the edge of the pool and climbed out, the water sloughing from her fur in heavy drops. “But does this kindness you propose offer more than just friendship and good feelings? I can do without those; I need something more valuable.”

“I’m not sure there is anything more valuable,” Thomas said, “but I think kindness brings healing. We’ve all experienced some of that too. In fact, Finlay, would you mind sharing with Ableil your story about Fiona? It’s a perfect example of the value of a little kindness.”

Finlay the fisherman agreed and relayed a brief version of his account, including his kindness in freeing her from the pixie-snare and her reciprocation of a benevolent charm and an enduring friendship. “That little kindness—kindness on both sides, mind you—has helped heal what otherwise might have turned from rivalry to enmity if we’d let it.”

“We all make mistakes, and we all need kindness,” Thomas repeated. He scooted closer to Ableil and reached his arms around her, pulling her wet furry body to his chest. She resisted a little, stiffening at his touch, but Thomas noticed an unusual look in her eyes when he released her and leaned back.

The boy tugged on the front of his shirt to shake free some of the grotto-water. “A friendly hug, Ableil, because we really would like to be your friends and help you if we can. Help both you and Gilroy somehow.”

The cavern rumbled. Ableil regarded him silently for a few moments. “Kindness. I suppose . . . but what sort of help could you offer?”

Thomas thought hard. “I don’t know if we can fix your situation or undo the curse Anna placed on you. I don’t know how we’d even begin to try that. But surely your life now can be made more comfortable and bright. Perhaps we can return often to care for the beautiful trees outside, or make sure the inside of the grotto is clean and tidy, or sit and tell you both stories and bring you treats from outside. Would you like any of those things?”

The grotto rumbled, and at the same moment Ableil gave Thomas a little nod and made a chittering noise that sounded like gratitude. Thomas reached over and patted the creature’s paw. Avery hopped closer as well, leaning his head against Ableil’s other paw. Elwood sneezed, which seemed at first to be entirely involuntary, but the look on his face bespoke his intention to convey something with it; and indeed Thomas felt that the sneeze had carried a note of camaraderie and kindness. Cathán gave Ableil a deep bow and returned her chittering sound with a happy squeak and a tremble of his whiskers. Finlay said nothing, but his smile was the curve of the river under a mid-autumn sun and his eyes were the clear blue of windy skies and bright afternoons in the shade of a tree.

Ableil wiped some of the water from her nose. “I would like those kindnesses very much, I think.”

Thomas crouched close. “I promise we’ll do those things and more, Ableil. You have my word. I do have a favor to ask of you. I’m your friend, and no matter what you say, I’ll be kind to you because you deserve kindness. But I’m also hoping you can help me. We came to the grotto today in order to retrieve something. You see, a witch has kidnapped my sister, and if I want to save her, I need to bring the witch four different objects from around the Valley of Thistles. One of those objects is the shell at the bottom of the pool.”

Ableil cocked her head to the side. “You want Gilroy’s heart?”

Thomas nodded. “Just to borrow it for a while, though I guess I can’t promise I’ll be able to recover it, but I’ll try. I know that’s asking a great deal, and I understand—”

“I’ll help you,” Ableil said. “I know something about witch’s curses, after all. I’ll help you because you’re my friend now. But—there’s something you should see first, before you can take Gilroy’s heart.”

She rose on her hind legs and extended a paw to Thomas. The boy glanced at his companions and then took the little furry paw in his own hand. With surprising strength, Ableil pulled Thomas along as she leapt gracefully from the grotto floor into the pool of water. Thomas’s stomach lurched, and he entered the water already spluttering and kicking his legs wildly.

Ableil pulled him down into the depths of the pool. Darkness swallowed Thomas up. He panicked for a moment, worrying about the dwindling air in his lungs and the pressure pushing against his ears and eyes.

But then he felt a lightness around him and his free hand brushed against something soft and gritty. Thomas pushed down and realized they were at the sandy bottom of the pool. Ableil swam in a circle around him, pushing his knees down until they touched the ground, and tapped his lips with her paw and said, in a voice as clear as springtime: “Breathe, Thomas from Mídhel. You are safe here.”

Tentatively, Thomas opened his mouth and breathed in. The water that came into his lungs tasted like air. It was an odd feeling among many odd feelings, breathing water like air. Thomas forced himself to remain calm. “How?” he said: unmuffled and clear, as though he stood on the shore and called out.

“Magic, of course.” Ableil reached for his face again. Thomas closed his eyes, and the creature tapped on his eyelids gently.

When Thomas opened his eyes again, he could see without impediment. He knelt at the bottom of the grotto pool. The surface was dark above him, but everything else was light and gauzy, the water spinning in a slow current, the ground sandy and soft, the circular walls of the pool dotted here and there with bits of moss and particles of wood and a few leaves from Gilroy’s trees outside.

“See now what I would show you,” Ableil said. She ran her paw along the back of Thomas’s neck. The fine hairs there prickled in response, and Thomas shivered.

The swirling water before him began to glow, revealing a ghostly figure and a large whorled shell resting on the sand. The figure was a woman in a long, tattered dress; she held a slender wand of budding birch in one hand and a thin silver chain in the other. Thomas caught the glint of a red stone hanging from the end of the chain. He couldn’t make out the woman’s expression in the current, but he could feel that she was angry. She traced a circle around the shell, her steps leaving ghostly imprints in the sand, sparks of color like purple fireflies fizzling out of the end of her wand as she moved against the current. Her dress rippled like snakeskin.

The shell was motionless, but Thomas sensed life within it as well. The shell was large and speckled with every shade of blue and white the boy could imagine. Its colors seemed to pulse with the memory of vibrancy, an echo of Gilroy’s own heart and a lingering force of will. Thomas could also feel conflict between the ghost of the serpent-witch Anna and the shell-heart of the king’s servant Gilroy. The very water was charged with it.

“She is tied to my belovèd’s heart,” Ableil said, floating next to Thomas. “You can feel her anger, no doubt. This was her fate: to be stuck in this watery grave with us, to feed forever on her own rage and the consequences of her own curse. It was a fitting punishment at the time, I thought.” She looked over at Thomas. “Now, however, I’m not so sure.”

Thomas nodded, the movement sending little bubbles of air toward the surface. “Will she understand me if I talk to her.”

“Yes. But be careful, Thomas. I don’t think you can take Gilroy’s heart if Anna is still linked to it. And their bond is now as much of her own making as mine; even if I release her, she’s connected to him with her own angry magic.”

With his hands cupped, Thomas paddled himself a little closer, letting his knees sink back into the sand only a foot away from the ghost-witch’s path. When Anna completed the curve of her ring around the shell and came to face Thomas, she stopped, floating before him with her indistinct features and her sparking wand and her glittering chain and her snakeskin dress. Thomas felt confusion from her, and then renewed anger.

“Hello, Anna,” he said, turning toward her directly. “I’m sorry to intrude. I’m an outsider, a living boy from up above, and I’m sure I’m not exactly welcome here. But I just wanted to tell you that I heard about what happened to you and I’m sorry. I certainly don’t know all the details, but it seems like you’re miserable down here, and I wish you weren’t.”

Thomas paused. He could feel Anna’s emotions changing, softening, and as they did her face became a little clearer. He could perceive the outline of a nose and cheekbones and a lock of hair over one brow. The hand holding the wand lowered just a fraction.

“I know you feel maligned and mistreated. Probably not just by Ableil and Gilroy, but by others in your life, as well. I can’t imagine people have been very kind to you. I’m sorry about that. We all need some kindness. And I’m sure you’re sad about the loss of the Tinker.”

Anna’s countenance darkened and she raised the wand in a threatening motion. Thomas felt the water grow hot around his face. He gulped a breath and braved himself on and continued: “I’m sorry to dredge up a painful memory, Anna. I can’t pretend to know what it feels like. I’m not here to try to fix all those hurts; I don’t know how to bring him back to you or right the injustices you’ve seen. And I’m not here to tell you that you’re absolved of all your own wrongs, either. That’s not my business or place.

“But I’m here because I think everyone has made mistakes and everyone deserves a little kindness. There was a battle up above, in Shady Glen, and it was painful for everyone. There’s a battle still going on here. Some of it came because Ableil was angry with you. Some of it is because you’re still angry about what happened.”

Thomas shifted a little closer. Anna’s features had sharpened again, and she’d lowered the wand all the way, letting its tip trail in the sand. “You’ve faced many hardships I can’t fix,” Thomas continued. “But maybe I can be kind to you anyway. And maybe you can let go of some of the anger you’re still holding to. Redemption from mistakes comes through kindness. If you let yourself release your anger, even just a little, I think you’ll feel better. I think it won’t hurt so much. That anger is hot like an ember, and when you hold it too close, it burns you too.”

The boy sat back on his heels and waited. He sat there for what seemed an eternity, watching the floating ghost-witch bob on the current, feeling the presence of Ableil at his side and the pulse of Gilroy’s heart in the sand a few feet away. Thomas hoped that his words would have some effect. He realized to his own surprise that, whether or not Anna relinquished her hold on the shell, he hoped she would let go of her anger enough to feel a little peace after so long. Thomas was still worried about saving his sister, and more immediately about perishing here in the depths of the grotto should Anna decide to attack him anyway, but his realization gave him a little needed comfort.

Anna moved suddenly, floating closer, right up to Thomas. The boy sat up straight. Anna lifted the wand; its sparks flared in the corner of Thomas’s vision, startlingly dark against the pale blue of the pool. Thomas held his breath.

The ghost-witch raised the chain and touched the tip of her birch-wand to the glittering stone hanging there. The fire-red of the stone faded, just a little, just enough for Thomas to think he saw it. Then Anna’s ghost let her hands fall and drifted a few feet away, her indistinct face still turned upon Thomas.

A wash of warm current came over him, and his hair prickled again. But this was not the heat of anger or malice; this felt like a rush of pent-up tension abruptly released, a surrender of emotion, a rendition of a long-grasped thought that left both relief and weariness in its wake. Thomas looked over at the blue-and-white shell. It was glowing brightly.

Ableil swam forward. She seemed hesitant, but picked up the shell and cradled it in her paws. It glowed ever brighter.

Thomas looked back at Anna. This was not the end in any regard for the serpent-witch Anna or her curses: Thomas knew that she, like so many others, had been both good and evil during her mortal life, and that she would continue to face the consequences of both types of action until every recompense was meted out.

But this had been something unquestionably good, and Thomas could feel the sense of relief shared by all present at the bottom of the grotto.

“Thank you,” Thomas said.

Anna nodded back at him and held up her glittering stone in a gesture that seemed to mimic his words somehow. Then she faded.

Thomas and Ableil swam back into the shadows above, the boy holding his breath, the furry creature gripping tight to the speckled shell. The water darkened and lightened again, and they broke through the surface of the pool and into the clean humid air of the grotto.

“Thomas! What a great and marvelous surprise, young boy, and truly a delight!”

Thomas pulled himself over the edge—helped by Finlay’s strong arms and Elwood’s well-meaning but unfruitful licking of Thomas’s face—and tried to figure out where the booming voice had come from. He wiped the water from his eyes, breathed in real air, and looked around. The grotto was the same as he had left it, except for the feeling of the walls and floor and ceiling, the very essence of the grotto itself, which was wholly changed.

“Yes, yes, Thomas, a particularly rousing show and a mighty lesson for all of us! I’ve never seen such kindness and bravery, not as a man and not as a thing of stone and bark and water! Oh no! Not once!”

Thomas sat up. The voice seemed to be throbbing through the grotto itself. And then Ableil burst out of the pool in a spraying arc and landed on the ground among them and held the speckled shell aloft with chattering triumph, and Thomas understood.

“Ableil! My sweet precious Ableil!” boomed the voice of Gilroy. “How beautiful you are! How gently you’ve cared for me, wept for me! At last we speak again!”

“Gilroy!” cried Ableil, followed by squeaks and chatters and barking noises.

Cathán, Finlay, and Avery clustered close to Thomas, checking him over and inquiring quietly about his adventure in the bottom of the pool while Gilroy and Ableil continued their rumbling, chaotic reunion. Elwood was beside himself with all the excitement; he added his own barks to the ruckus, chased his tail for a minute, and at last whined next to Ableil with his tail thumping on the wet ground until she scratched behind his shaggy ears and told him he was a good boy. Then the dog retreated to Thomas’s side and flopped down, panting heavily.

“Gilroy! Gilroy, hold a minute!” Ableil shouted happily. “We have to thank Thomas and his friends properly, and then I’m sure they’ve other places to be!”

“Oh, of course!” rumbled the grotto. Thomas found it strange to listen to such a loud voice with no obvious source, but the vibrations of the grotto were surprisingly expressive in their intensity.

“Thomas, thank you for what you’ve done.” Ableil drew near, her eyes shining. “You’re right about kindness. It hasn’t fixed every one of my problems, but it’s brought happiness and relief: both were sorely needed. Thank you.”

“Many thanks indeed!” boomed Gilroy.

“You’re welcome,” Thomas said. “I’m happy to have helped.”

Ableil held up the shell. “This is yours, Thomas, for as long as you need it. I’d love to have it back, but—I think Gilroy’s real heart isn’t in the shell after all. I think it’s in the pool and the trees and the cavern and, well, perhaps in me too. So I think we’ll be just fine without the shell. And we have so much to discuss!”

Thomas smiled and accepted the shell. It was heavy and solid and pulsed under his fingers. “Thank you, Ableil. Thank you, Gilroy.”

“I do need a promise of you in return,” the sleek, odd creature admonished, shaking a paw. “You’ll return weekly, or as near to it as you can, with treats for me and tales for Gilroy. All of you are welcome to come as often as you’d like, but I do expect you back. Do you promise?”

Each of them promised Ableil and Gilroy that they would visit. “Good!” boomed the grotto cheerily, and Ableil echoed his sentiment.

“Thank you again,” Thomas said, standing. “We have to take our leave now, but—we’ll see each other soon.”

“Even so,” replied Ableil, accompanying them to the edge of the stairs and the thin shaft of light from the world above. “Don’t tarry overlong in returning. And bring that sister of yours when you come back. And Thomas? Thank you for being right about kindness.”

Thomas smiled and patted Ableil on her furry head. Then he and his companions climbed the steps and emerged into the twilight of Tuesday evening, speckled shell in hand.