Eight knots. Anna Efimenko
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pretty aware that Lekki would like himself to go to visit the one he had always loved. Except for lazy ones, everyone whispered about the herb-woman and the beekeeper in the village. Having no right to get married, they had no right even to appear together in public – otherwise, it would be against the rules. Nevertheless, they always found options – and the herb-woman always put on a beekeeper’s hat with a long meshed veil inconspicuously covering her face when she went down the hill and got back to her place behind the birch grove. They always found a chance to see each other. But today Lekki was too busy counting the profits for the sales day, so the young man went alone to the red-haired woodland sorceress. The villagers were wary of her and called her the Green woman. Nevertheless, they always came to her place for a cure for any ailment. They treated her like all the healers belonging to all peoples in the world, with the deepest awe and reverence, because common people could only explain the miraculous effect of herbs on the body by magic.
The herb-woman’s hut was actually outside the community lands, across the river, and beyond the birch grove – no one would ever risk planting birches in the village’s territory. The tree border, tree of the waters of Oblivion – as they used to say here about the birch, and Pagey had been seeing the silvery bark since his childhood to find the log cabin of a beautiful witch in woods, who was once close to Lekki and even stayed at their place in the apiary. The red-haired woman left the beekeeper when the threat being revealed became too obvious. Nevertheless, nothing prevented the herb-woman to keep a warm relationship with the beekeeper until today and feel the most tender affection for his foster child.
Pagey knocked on the door three times.
“Look who’s here!” the herb-woman smiled bringing him inside the house.
The young man breathed in a spicy warm air, placed on the fire, something was brewing in the cauldron. Unable to restrain his curiosity, he blurted right out of the gate,
“Why did the Gevers come here?”
The woman pretended not to know what he was talking about and uttered tranquilly,
“Sounds like they have been chased away from the previous place. Would you like a pie? Just your favorite left…”
But Pagey wasn’t up to pies,
“Why are they being chased everywhere?”
“Because they are disobedient in the eyes of the authorities.”
“But who asked them to come down here?”
“Me,” the herb-woman replied calmly.
Sitting down on the bench that had already been chosen by a triple colored cat named Rosehip, Pagey thoughtfully rubbed the pet and frowned,
“You’re not scared?”
“Who?”
“Him.”
“No,” laughed the herb-woman, stirring the contents in the cauldron over the fire. “I’m not afraid of him at all.”
“You know better,” Pagey replied somberly, growing dark more and more. “But if I were you, I’d tread carefully to argue with the druid.”
* * *
A few days later, the community gathered around a big bonfire near the river. Each festival of the Wheel of the Year was a node in public life, and so, it was another cold October, so, they all went outside to celebrate the black Samhain. Remembering the dead, remembering the past, wanting to confuse evil spirits and wicked fairies, the locals dressed up in weird clothes, painted their faces with soot, and even hid behind masks carved from pumpkins.
Hom arrived with his grandfather and the groom – the executioner. The boatman left the crossing and went to the bonfire, incessantly smoking cigarettes and sitting all alone a little distance from the bonfire. The blackberry family arrived at the festivity as a whole – the most successful married couple of entrepreneurs were together with their kids, all as one dressed in black. A few Gever women were here, too.
Pagey noticed Lady Crescent, and he was seized by an incredible joy.
“She’s a Beauty,” uttered the young man with adoration, keeping a close eye on the Gever girl.
Hom made a face,
“You mean, this one? A Beauty? Come on. If there is a beauty here, it must be her,” and with those words, the fair-haired man pointed to the thin and sad blackberry wife standing with all her numerous offsprings.
“The blackberry wife?” Pagey was surprised. “She’s old enough to be your mother!”
“You’d think that someone had ever been stopped,” Hom retorted.
“But she’s married to the bearded man. They’re wealthy. And it’s wrong to think that.”
But his friend cut him off,
“Will you shut up, Pagey? It’s wrong, you know, to drool over a dirty little Gypsy, and that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“You shut up,” Pagey answered back light-heartedly and stood up to go and say hello to Vita.
But as soon as he went up to her, they all fell silent at the sound of a low voice, familiar to everyone here, which was loudly announcing,
“Let the new year begin. The spoke swung, the Wheel of the Year keeps on moving.”
The druid approached the bonfire and raised his long, powerful arms above the flames.
He was tall and lean, with clear cheekbones incised on his face – you thought, you could even cut yourself with these cheekbones. Throughout his appearance, there was something authoritarian, uncompromising. No wonder people treated the druid with great respect, brought gifts to each full moon, paid the land rent promptly. Of course, the people tried to appease Mr. Kelly – but only because he was an old soldier and kept an eye on justice in the community. They obeyed the druid on some inner, intuitive level.
Slightly touching the gilt buttons on his luxurious dark blue coat, the druid began his message, alas, not with solemn speech,
“Before we start to celebrate the festivity, I ask each of you, who called the Gevers into our lands?”
The herb-woman stood up and having straightened her green dress, answered defiantly,
“Stop pretending you didn’t realize it was me.”
Dumfounded by such familiarity with the lord, people began to whisper in surprise, and the druid continued unperturbed,
“You know the rules established regarding our limited relationship with the rest of the world. Nevertheless, you broke them. You don’t belong in today’s ritual, let it be a lesson to you.”
The herb-woman waved her hand,
“I don’t even live on your property, take a chill.”
“Nevertheless, you called them on my land. Without my consent. Should you go back to your territory?”
Hom, the druid’s favorite, had been silently watching the proceedings, now stepped forward defiantly barking an order,
“Escort this woman to her house.”
Two burly men, the field workin’ people, came up to her, and she had no choice but to obey.
“I knew that this was going to happen,” Pagey thought sadly. “I warned her.”
Standing next to him, Vita stared at him in stony silence, dazed. Neither she nor Pagey could move.
The figure of the druid remained motionless by the fire. Now he was at the peak of his might and power: regal, tough, like a thousand-year-old stone.
Passing by him, the herb-woman muttered caustically,
“You are the