This is a project that doesn’t begin and end with my writing fiction.  I plan to involve my daughter and perhaps my son in writing these stories.  Perhaps I’ll be able to learn to appeal to a different audience through this process.  I haven’t intended to write children’s stories even if some of my writing has come off childish.  Now, perhaps, it can be intentional.

***

Aivi was in her place, her secret place, her private place.  There was no quiet in her house, her little brother, Ro saw to that.  Here in the little cave by the little stream, Aivi could get a little peace. 

“Aivi!” came the call on the wind.  It was mother and she sounded angry.  Aivi, for her part, wanted nothing to do with angry mothers.  She hunkered down a little more and planned on returning later than she might have otherwise.  She took up her flute and played low and soft so that sounds from without were masked, but her secrets weren’t revealed.  Sometimes girls just needed a break.  Mother should understand that.

So it was a great surprise, as she played in her little cave, when there were shadows at her cave door, her mother stepped in with Ro held by his elbow.  Realization that she was discovered was replaced with anger that mother had betrayed her privacy and brought her little brother, replaced at last by cold fear.  Aivi expected to see anger on her mother’s face, but instead there was only fear.

“Aivi, stay here with Ro.  Hide.  There are soldiers coming.  Father is gathering things that we will need to survive in the forest.  Don’t come back to the house no matter what happens.” And then she was gone and her brother, Ro, remained staring at her with big frightened eyes.

***

So, the scene is set.  A girl who is a little rebellious.  A younger brother who is not her best friend, to put it kindly.  Trouble on the horizon like nothing she has faced before.  In this story I imagine that Aivi is at least 13, and probably a little more.  Because girls mature faster than boys in general, I imagine that Ro is perhaps only 2 years separated from his sister but probably seems younger. 

They live next to the forest, but it has never been their home.  They are the children of farmers so that the woods are a place to visit, but they are not highly schooled in forest craft, it will be a strange new world and very threatening.

I believe this story will be told with reference to the children’s past interactions with their parents, but at least at the beginning here they will be alone.  I hope this situation will not provide yet another “kids do better without their folks” fodder, that isn’t my intention, quite the reverse.  So I will try, in my writing, to avoid that.  –  LSO

When they had finished their meal, Oatie began to gather the pots and leavings from their meal, but Lugh took them from her hands.  “You did the cooking, the least I can do is wash up afterward.”  He was rewarded with a lovely smile and felt good about it as he washed the pots and spoons with water and sand from the little stream.

The fire had died down to almost nothing.  Camp was laid, with Oatie already in her bed and another bed, on the other side of the fire, laid out for him.  It had been a long day, but Lugh didn’t quite feel like sleep.  After stowing the gear, he took some firewood from the pile and added it to their camp fire, stirring up the flames in the process.  Lugh laid down and looked over at Oatie where she lay.  He was surprised to see her eyes shining in the dancing fire light, he’d thought she was already asleep.

“I’m sorry if I woke you by stirring up the fire.  I thought maybe you were already asleep.”

“No,” she said, Lugh thought a bit sadly, “I was thinking.”

“Thinking what?”

“Everything and nothing,” she said.  Oatie rolled on her back and looked up at the stars. ”Thanks for cleaning the pots, by the by.  That was good of you.”

“Thanks for cooking and making camp.  Was thanks for cleaning the pots what you were thinking?  Because I find that hard to believe.”

Oatie pondered the question and said nothing at first, but Lugh could she was now looking at him, her eyes, bright and avid, in the fire-light’s glow. “I suppose I was thinking you were not what I expected is all,” she finally said after a long silence.

“Why would you expect anything? Did you know I was coming?”

“Not really, I was surprised to find you sitting on my giant, but I knew you, Lugh of the Long Journeys.  What Norfolk would not?”

“Really? It has been a long time since I’ve been with your folk, and still you know me?”

“Hard not to remember. . .” Oatie’s voice trailed off in the night.

Lugh was annoyed by what seemed a riddle.   Oatie was hinting around something and it angered him for a reason on which he could not put his finger.  “And why is that?” he prodded. “It seems you have a bad image of me and are surprised, as bad as I am, that I’m not worse.”

“I meant no offense, only thanks for the help.”

“. . .because I’m such an ogre that no Norfolk would expect common decency from me?” Lugh sat up, too agitated now to calmly lie beside the fire. “What is all this?”

“We need to sleep, Lugh, please.” Oatie snuggled deeper in her bed roll, but her eyes still shone through her long eye-lashes.

“Then tell me and have done.”

“I don’t think this is the time to talk of such things.  We should sleep.”

“Should we, truly?  Then put my mind at ease and answer, what are we even talking about?  It seems I’ve done some wrong that every Norfolk knows.  It can’t be a great secret, tell me then what I’ve done or how could I possibly sleep?”

“How could you not know it?”

“How could I if you don’t tell me?  I swear I have no idea what it is you are saying so much not to say.”

“It is a hard thing.” She seemed about to say something important but instead she began in a rush, “This is not the time to speak of it.  Honestly, I don’t know why I would believe anything my people say.  We are both outcast and I prefer it so.  It is nothing, idle chatter from a tired head.  Go to sleep Lugh, we will need our strength for the morrow.”  Oatie turned her back and disappeared into her bedding roll.

Lugh had had enough deflection.  He threw off blankets, moved to Oatie’s side, and, reaching out, pulled her shoulder to turn her back toward him, “Tell me this hard thing.  You must. . .”

“Don’t touch me!” Oatie shrieked and flinched away.

Lugh had no intention of harming her and Oatie’s reaction, seeming to suggest that he could, enraged him.  Lugh grabbed her shoulders and shook her, “Tell me! Is this about Von?”  The terror in her eyes made him know that it was. “What about Von? She warned me of my brother and I fled. What happened to Von?”

“You’re hurting me,” she cried.

“Tell me what happened to Von.” He hissed and shook her again, more violently than he intended.  Cloth tore, but Lugh did not release her.

“They killed her,” Oatie managed and Lugh froze, stunned. Oatie’s eyes were wide with terror, “Are you going to kill me Lugh?” she asked, but Lugh had already dropped her and wandered into the lonely night.

This continues a story titled:  The Deer Riders

“The first time I watched outside myself I put down to a dream, but it was not the last time. Always I saw true, so I think now these are no dreams, but true seeing though it be without eyes.”

The boys looked solumnly attentive, this was an admission of a fact that they knew, that their grandfather was a seer, that he knew things, had seen things that only a seer could have beheld. “What did you do Grandfather?”

“In fact, when I looked down on the wooded vale from the stone knob that morning, I did not see the glitter of water. This reassured me somewhat that I had dreamed, not flown out of my body. Still, there was a hump, a rounded hill, in what appeared to be clear land within the circling wood and though I could not see them, I knew the wood was surrounded by brambles.

I remembered the little stream I’d stumbled into in the dark. Now, if I had known that my dream was true I would have feared to go, but because it seemed a little different my curiosity was fired, not my caution. The stream seemed a likely approach so I decided to see if I could explore the vale and look for food or other material that we could use.

The stream gathered small rivulets as it went and the stream bed sunk into a bit of a gorge. I followed it down the ridge and into and then under the bramble-wood.

The little gorge became a tunnel, roofed over with bramble vines. I was becoming nervous because everything seemed so un-natural. Still, I went on to see what was around the next corner and the next until having waded a broad silty section I rounded a tight turning and found my way barred by something undoubtedly un-natural, a wooden grill-work.

This was no accidental crossing of roots. The grill was of evenly sized and spaced timbers neatly joined, though old and somewhat rotted at the bottom. I edged close enough to peer into the valley. I could see the sky and sunlight and trees in the distance, but nothing of the grill-work’s makers.

The stone work that held the grill was mortared stone, finely worked and solid.  I strung my bow. If not before there was no doubt now, this place was crafted, not a place of nature at all having been shaped by someone’s hand. I did not know them, nor them me, so it seemed prudent at that moment to retreat.

As I recrossed the pool of silty water, I noticed a branching off the way I had come. It may have been that I had not seen it at all, but I could easily have thought it was just one of many jointing of small rivulets along the way. As I drew closer and faced, as I was, to see into it, I saw it for what it was, a path up out of the gorge. Some of the work, stair and wall, looked like the mounting that held the grill.

What to do? I confess I stood for a long time in the muddy pool staring at that passage. When I began to shiver I was moved to action. I decided to get out of the stream and see if the passage presented emediate danger. It did not, to me it seemed abandoned, clogged with old leaves.

I was uncomfortably wet, there was no place in the stream to take off and dry or even reason to do it. I followed the stairs or the side path up and out. The path through the wood split, one way going toward the valley, the other to an old campsite. It was clearly long abandoned, with a fallen shelter against a dressed stone hearth. It could have served as a lookout watching the gorge approach from above, but nobody had stayed here for a very long time. The wood pile, for there was one, was rotted. There was a spring flowing from a pool well dressed and very clean. I tasted and then with confidence filled my water skins. All was overgrown giving me confidence that I  could rest there and let my things dry.

I slept, and longer than I had intended. It was the dark of night when I woke in pitch blackness beneath the trees. I could feel the hard stone beneath me else I would have feared even more. I was sure my things were dry, but I could not navigate blind. I let sleep claim me once more.

This is the end of the second part of “The Deer Riders”