As he watches the people, Arthur slowly realizes what is putting him on edge—at least, more on edge than is usual.
Men have clustered around men and women around women.
And here Arthur leans alone.
In Three Graces everyone sows the fields, everyone harvests, but beyond that, most work is divided into men’s work and women’s. Men hunt. Women sew. Men prepare meat and repair thatching. Women care for homes, gardens, and families. Men make what needs to be made, from beer and barrels to wheels and shoes. There are exceptions: Braith Bowen learned his smithing from his mother and grandmother, and Brian Dee and Ifan Ellsworth compete for the best herb garden. In the evenings there are usually more men gossiping in the pub and more women and girls laughing and sharing tips around private cottage fires. Nobody knows as well as Arthur that there are things for men and things for women. But it’s not usually so obvious as it is tonight. When the town gathers here for marriages or memorials, for celebrating the end of harvest or first planting, when Three Graces comes together for joy, all mingle. Men and women, boys and girls, woven together as they eat and tease one another, as they cheer on the celebration or flirt.
Arthur feels a sneer curl his mouth and doesn’t put it away. It may well be that men and boys should be drawn naturally to some things and women to others, but what is not natural is the way this fear tonight, the way this tension of wondering if someone will die, if someone will run early into the Devil’s Forest, puts everyone into a very strict location that is either with men, or with women. Nothing in between.
On a night like this, a person can only be one thing or the other, no matter how it compromises the truth to choose a side.
He should join the men. But he still remembers the laughter ten years ago, gentle though it may have been, when he’d volunteered to run. Seven years old and furious and frightened, and the men had laughed.
They didn’t laugh at him anymore, but they didn’t like him much, either.
“Your face will stick that way,” Mairwen says, a perennial comment.
Startled, Arthur clenches his jaw, then smoothly turns to her. He won’t give her the satisfaction of having surprised him. “What does Vaughn say?”
She lifts her chin and, instead of answering him alone, marches into the center of the square. Lifting her hands, she calls out, “Everyone!”
“Mair,” Rhun says, waving in relief. Everyone looks to her, making space where she stands so more can see, as there is nothing for her to stand on.
“Vaughn says we wait for the morning,” Mairwen yells. “Either all this illness will pass as always, or blood will appear on the Bone Tree, and we will have our Slaughter Moon in two nights.”
She makes to leave, having said what she came to say, and Arthur smiles tightly at her naïveté when Rhun catches her elbow and murmurs something clearly remonstrative. Mair’s lips curdle into a frown and she shrugs.
“I don’t know,” she says belligerently. But she looks around.
You’re supposed to be the Grace witch, Arthur thinks, shaking his head. He laughs a little to himself, meanly, and joins them.
“What?” she asks.
Arthur turns his back to the crowd so none see him suggest, “Tell the story, Mair.”
It’s how the Slaughter Moon rituals begin, always. The Grace witch recounts the tale. It should calm the crowd to give them familiarity to cling to.Tradition.
Mair’s eyes widen in acceptance and she calls out, “All three sisters were named Grace!”
Rhun appears with a bench, Haf Lewis carrying the other end of it. The two lift her up. She steadies herself with a hand on Rhun’s shoulder, though it should be Arthur’s—he’s the taller boy.
Mairwen says again, “All three sisters were named Grace.
“One after the other,” she tells the town, “the daughters were born to a desperate mother, and named Grace by their terrible father, only to be swaddled out of the cottage under the pretense of sudden death. They were smuggled thirty miles away to be raised by their widowed aunt and never seen by their father. For seventeen years the three girls lived with their aunt in peace: The eldest Grace was tall and lovely, preferring her garden to the world; the middle Grace was strong and enjoyed running and climbing most of all; the youngest Grace was never satisfied, for she had a curious nature. When she was fifteen, the youngest wandered far from home, searching for peace. But it was this valley she discovered instead. Secure on all sides by grand mountains, home to wild ponies and several happy goats, with a small creek flowing through and a deep forest, the youngest Grace was amazed no people lived there yet. She felt as though her heart belonged in the dark forest and that inside it she would discover great secrets and the answers her heart desired. But in her travels she’d grown wise enough to know she needed her family to keep her grounded. And so the youngest Grace returned for her aunt and sisters. She persuaded them with a handful of never-dying flowers from the edge of the forest and a branch that would not break. The three Graces came to the valley and made a home.
“Others soon joined them, as if the sisters’ loving presence had opened doors through the mountains, and settlers were beckoned through, from all corners of the world, all kinds and looks of folk who sought safety or peace or merely to satisfy their curiosity. The town grew in size, pressing against the walls of the valley, and especially the dark woods to the north. When her roots had grown deep into the village, the youngest Grace ventured into the forest, drawn by the shifting shadows and a dream she frequently had, wherein she stood in a grove of yellow spring flowers, beside an ancient white tree, and smiled as though she had never been so happy.
“She explored the forest and met the devil who resided there: She saw his form to be beautiful, as mysterious as the night, as elegant as reaching oak trees, and dangerous enough to sink through her heart. The youngest Grace fell in love with him. She brought her sisters to the edge and said, ‘Here is an old god of the forest. I love him and I will make him my husband.’
“But her sisters screamed, for they saw a horned devil with black eyes and claws, whose fine legs were covered with rough fur and whose feet were cloven. They saw a monster, not the god their sister loved.
“Her sisters tried to convince her to stay with them, or to flee the valley again, because this devil could not be trusted. But the youngest Grace knew the forest and understood the land, and so, too, did she believe her devil was a piece of the forest, dangerous only as the world is dangerous, monstrous only as is the lion or crow or any human. She said, ‘Sisters, I love him, and if you love me, you will trust me. He knows magic, and has taught it to me. I will teach it, in turn, to you. We will make our valley strong and perfect, so that no harm touches any of our neighbors or friends.’
“?‘Impossible,’ her sisters replied. ‘There is no magic so strong.’
“And then the devil spoke, in a voice like summer and birdsong, thick around his sharp teeth, ‘Oh, but there is. It is the magic of life and death, hearts and heart-roots, stars and decay. We will bind ourselves together, your sister and I, and ever after Three Graces will be our children, and blessed. For all of time your fields will bear fruit, your mountain abound with meat, the rains be gentle, and no plague come upon you.’ The devil smiled and continued. ‘But when the Slaughter Moon rises, you will send the best of your sons to my forest. Willing he must come, and ready to fight. My demons and spirits will harry and torment him; they will hunt him and try to feast upon his bones. Either this son will fall, never to be seen again in this world or the next, mine for all time, or if he proves himself brave and strong enough to survive until dawn, he shall return to his home and family, to live long with the bounty of his sacrifice.’?”
Mairwen stops.
