Highland Raven by Melanie Karsak Page A

Epona asked her.
    “The Seelies are holding court.”
    I knew the brownies. They were the riders of the pine marten; they were the six-inch-high brown-haired fey. And there was not a child alive who didn’t know who the Seelies were. They were the fair-folk of the mound, the barrows, the place this strange woman wanted to take me the next morning. They were the faerie people who had walked the land before our kind—mankind—had come.
    “What of the Unseelies?” Epona asked.
    Sid sighed heavily. “First they would not come, though they thought they might. Then they sent Rhiannon. Then they all came. It was a joyous and merry event. We celebrated a good many days.”
    We turned again and headed back toward the houses.
    “Sister, you must be sure to eat. We’ll join in the house at sundown. Be sure to come,” Epona told Sid when we reached grove.
    Sid nodded. “I am told my house is a mess and mischief will be afoot if I do not clean it.”
    Without another word, Sid rushed off speaking harshly with…her shoulder. Ludmilla, who’d gone back to working on the fire, watched Sid skeptically.
    “Well?” Epona asked me. She looked in the direction of Sid.
    She seemed mad. Talking with apparitions, dressed like a mad woman, speaking of old things, Sid showed all the signs of madness. Yet by the old ways deep within me, I knew she was not crazy. “She is in communication with the faeries.”
    “Sid was a victim,” Epona said as she sat down on a wooden bench in front of her house. “To the normal eye, she does appear mad. Long ago, a courtly lady took pity on her. They found Sid when she was just a girl, naked, in the woods. She was taken to court, cleaned up, and sent to the kitchens. Sid spoke hardly at all, and when she did speak, it was in this same distracted manner. The lord of the house took kindly to her form, I’m sure you noticed she is striking under all that mess, and begot a bastard child on her. She birthed the child then bashed it on the hearth until it was dead. She was taken from the castle, flogged, and sold to a group of traveling entertainers. They kept her in a cage; she was left talking nonsense as she did in the beginning, and people paid a price to see her. They tortured her for amusement. She still bears scars.
    “I found her on one excursion into Wales. I purchased her, mended her wounds, and brought her back with me. It took me awhile to help her reconcile what she saw and the voices she heard to what I, and you, see in this world. She has bridged a large gap.
    “Her trips to the other side, however, leave her physical body in a state of disrepair. She has been gone nearly two weeks. I doubt she has eaten human food. When you go with her to the barrow tomorrow, be prepared for an unusual experience,” Epona told me.
    “About the child she killed. I understand her anger, but—“ I was aghast.
    “Perhaps, one day, she will tell you the tale, and you can decide for yourself how you feel about such an act,” Epona said with a sigh. “She has borne another child since. It was, she tells me, to the Seelie King. I saw the child after it was born but have not seen it since. She tells me he lives with his father.”
    “You don’t travel where she goes?”
    Epona shook her head. “No one has ever been able to follow Sid.”
    I nodded. My competitive urge splashed up.
    “Ah, I see it in your eyes. I hope you can. Sid would thank you for it.”
    Uald joined us. “Perhaps we should see to your horse now?”
    I nodded and stood.
    “Come for dinner thereafter,” Epona said and went within.
    I followed Uald to the little wooden barn that sat on the right of the grove entrance. A small, fenced pasture was behind the barn; two mares grazed there. Toward one side of the barn was a smithy with stone half-walls and a wooden roof. Behind it was a little room where, it seemed, Uald stayed.
    “I do metal working. Are you interested in such things?” Uald asked.
    “I’d love to