Evening, A Sight by the Window

 A wooden fire pit kept the lonely stone walls warm. Her house was one of those cast away from the path, just on the outskirts of the already remote village. Her axe stayed hooked by the door. The space was open, the floorboard crafted from a fine pinewood. Deep, warm walls. The smell of firewood. Unlit candles praying to secluded shrines and poets. A kitchen, filled with utensils of all sorts, shone in the setting sun. Silver glittered against the grey stone walls. A window was well placed, looking beyond the station, deep into the empty green plains of this faraway place. The cold had begun to come in with the fading sun. Chopped wood lined the back wall.

We sat goatskin-and-leather pillows, fluffed with geese feathers. After the wooden train, my joints relaxed, my muscles unwound and breathed. The herbal tea kept my ungloved hands warm. She sat opposite me, across the sparking pit. My eyes stayed on her. Inside of the stone cabin, and during the setting of sun, our age showed.
‘I’ve never had such a tea before, what is it?’
‘Ah, fair. I’ve never seen it elsewhere, myself. The old watcher, Byoinn, before she passed, she said it grew only on the deep springs of the mountains. Is that why you’re here?’
I felt her curiosity about me linger. Was I to answer her truthfully? I wouldn’t tell her about it all. I couldn’t. She spoke above my thoughts,
‘You should stay here, this eve. If you’re going up the mountain, you’ll die by midnight,’ The fire settled as I looked at her. Her voice hung in my head. She had a calmness and control integral to every part of her. As though looking at the stars on a quiet, cloudless night. Small inflections and movements were natural, graceful. Looking at her, I felt my mind see her, listening dearly to every word she spoke. Her eyes moved from the fire and into my eyes. It was as though we were beyond. I was at a gentle sort of ease. I would not keep her alone through the night. Nor, did I want to be alone.

We lay next to each other, around the fire. She had asked me to. Her name was Yannie. Evening passed deep into night, spilling our thoughts with one another over the dimming fire, entranced in our eyes and the warmth of one another. I thought her like me, a witch, but no. She was undeniably beautiful. She let me speak. I was no longer interrupted, I told her stories old and new. I told her about the winter past, the summer gone. I told her about the cradle I had been found bundled within. My mouth slipped, beginning the telling of mutilations, before she spoke,
‘Do not say what brings you unease, love.’ The suffix made my tired cheeks blush. My face was uneasy, and she had read that. I thanked her, concluding whatever tale I had to tell.   Yannie was an orphan, too. Her parents, although unknown, had followed her throughout her life. She travelled away from them, coming to a place where one needed to survive. Bought into no family, as I had been, she instead cast her doubts aside and fled, making short friends in small, unnamed villages. She was granted hospitality by old crones who saw some terror in her eyes. She had crossed desserts and crossed sprawling cities before she abandoned her pursuer.
‘I couldn’t care about them. There were a shadow in the night, trying to reach out and take me deep, deep back to where I was from. Their life was their own, and as was mine. They expected forgiveness of me, I wanted a life of stillness. I wanted awayness.’
There were years of her life she overtly avoided retelling. The same wave of shame expressed in those quick eyes. She told me of lovers’ found and lost. She whispered some quiet words about me being her warming attention. Like a youth, a stupid, ignorant woman, I blushed. 

And then, in the quiet moment of the night, she asked why I had come here. To this isolated town on the edge of all knowing.
‘I’ve been headed here my whole life.’ was all I could muster. Vague images of Rytt came to me, but I passed them beyond. My eyes hardly saw him any more. She told me, my head falling into her lap as age taunted sleep, about a cabin, belonging to the old watcher of the mountains, keeping out ill-haunted winds from the mountains.
‘They’ve been unheard from in too long. Some think that her last whisper has been uttered. A horrible death, yes?’
‘Yes,’
‘All alone in the snow, wooden walls… is that where you’ll go?’
‘...yes.’
Yannie rose. My heart raced as she left me. Suddenly, the fire was no longer enough to keep me warm. She walked to the door, passing my staff and rucksack, into a cupboard by the door. Reaching in, a lantern and a cask of oil were produced. She set them by the door, hooking the lantern on the staff.
‘Head up through the Birch-spring. From there, find the shrine, and you will need to climb the creek to the bridge of the mountain’s calley. Between Wren-Point and Robin-Point. Follow along Wren’s coast, until the shack is in sight. If the blizzard winds are ture, then I would rather you didn’t go. I hope you find what’s needed there.’

I thanked her. Quietly, between my stubborn, ignorant lips. She chuckled, quietly. Her hand stroked my hair. It was wiry and unwashed. Sleep took me before I could complain. Or, before I could return the affection.

A summer’s day. I was eating a fig from her hands. Yannie’s. Her fingers were long and scarred. I saw myself in the height of my youth. My hair was long, my skin, black. The fruit lay bare, the skin broken, as I ate. The juices spilled between her fingers. However, out of the fig, poured not fruit, but shadow. The ichor of darkness spilled from the fruit, through the hands of Yannie and deep into the deep, dark void below us. The darkness was deep and The sunlight left us. I devoured the shadow, no choice but to store it within me. I ate and ate. The Knights of the Candle began to watch us. Their faces were unseen. I could never remember them, could I? Each knight held their own candles. The wax fell between their fingers. Each cast longer and longer shadows. The shadows poured through Yannie. She was uncaring. The fruit, the fig, spilled into my entire being. The dream passed with my quick awakening. My mouth was dry. My lips burned a little.

The moonlight shone through a gap in the clouds. It struck the window with perfect aim. The window now featured a single shadow. It was cast by moonlight, quick and momentary, but there, he stood. Behind the glass. Sudden and seeing. I knew his form, and I knew this was it. His face came back to me. The eyes of the moonlit shadow opened, and there, beamed the raw light of the moon. The light seeped from his eyes. I felt a chill held in those eyes. Was this a call for help? A simulacrum sent in search for salvation? Yet, I was close, so close to finding him after so long. Ambition and determination forced me to sit up. I sprawled through the arms of Yannie. My senses returned to me. I looked. We were quilted, her slack arm previously slung around my chest. Her breathing was slow, drawn and measured. Her breath was warm. A cold rushed through me, not a cold that could be heated by fire, but the cold distance of her touch. Maybe it was something that I had never warded off before, though it was something I wanted to be free of. I wanted to hold her, close and dearly, though now I was on my feet. My back ached. He was nearby. I did not want to leave.