Ilse Witch

The staring contest continued for a long time with neither watcher nor Borderman advancing or retreating. Finally the Borderman spoke, calling to the watcher, thanking it for helping him. The watcher stayed where it was. The Borderman spoke for a long time, keeping his voice low and calm in the way he had learned was effective, growing more and more convinced that the watcher was not human. It was, he believed, a spirit creature. It was a child of the Wolfsktaag.

It was nearing dawn when the watcher finally came close enough to be seen clearly. It was a woman, but it was not human. She slid from the shadows as if formed of colored water, changing her look as she came, a beast one moment, a human the next, a cross of each soon after. She seemed to be trying to take form, uncertain of what to be. In all of her variations, she was beautiful and compelling. She knelt by the Borderman and stroked his forehead and face with soft, strange fingers. She whispered words that the Borderman could not identify, but in a tone of voice that was unmistakable—sweet, silky, and thick with lust.

She was a shape-shifter, he realized, a creature of the Old World, a thing of magic and strange powers. Something of who and what he was, or perhaps something of her own nature, had drawn her to him. She stared at him with such unbridled passion that he was caught up in her fire. She wanted him in a primal, urgent way, and he found his response to her need equally compelling.

They mated there in the clearing, quick and hard, a coupling more terrible for its frenzy than for its forbidden character. A human and a spirit creature—no good can come of that, the old ones would say.

She carried him to her lair, and for three days they mated without stopping, resting only when it was required, submerged in their passion when it was not. The Borderman forgot his wounds and his misgivings and any sense of reason. He put aside everything for this wondrous creature and what she was giving him. He los1t himself in his uncontrollable need.

When it was finished, she was gone. He woke on the fourth day to silence and emptiness. He lay alone, abandoned. He rose, weak and unsteady, but alive in ways he had never thought to be. Her smell and taste lingered in the air around him, on his skin, in his throat. Her presence, the feel of her, was burned into his memory. He wept uncontrollably. He would never be the same without her. She had marked him forever.

For months afterwards, he hunted for her. He combed the Wolfsktaag from end to end, forsaking everything else. He ate, drank, slept, and hunted. He did so ceaselessly. The weather and the seasons changed, then changed back again. A year passed. Two. He never saw her. He never found a trace of where she had gone.

Then one day, a little more than two years later, when he was reduced to searching because he did not know what else to do, when he no longer held out any hope, she came to him again. It was late in the year, and the leaves were changed and beginning to fall in careless pools of bright red and orange and yellow on the forest floor. He was walking toward a spring from which he could drink before continuing on. He did not know where he was or where he was going. He was moving because moving was all that was left to him.

And all at once she was there, standing in front of him, at the pool’s edge.

She was not alone. A boy stood beside her, part human, part beast, instantly recognizable from his features. He was the child of the Borderman. Already grown to become nearly as large as his mother, he was too big for a normal boy of two. Sharp-eyed and quick, he stared at his father cautiously. There was recognition and understanding in his eyes. There was acceptance. His mother had told him the truth about his father.

The Borderman came forward and stood awkwardly before them, not knowing what to do. The woman spoke to him in low, compelling tones. Her words, the Borderman found, were clear. She had mated with him when the urge was irresistible and her attraction to him inexplicably strong. They were mismatched and unsuited. But he should know they had a son. He should know and then forget them both.

It was a pivotal moment. The Borderman had searched for her while she had all but forgotten him. She neither needed nor wanted him. She had her own life, a spirit’s life, and he could never be part of it. She did not understand that she had destroyed him and he could never forget her, could never go back to being what he had been. He was hers as surely as the boy was his. It did not matter what world he had come from or what life he had led. He was hers, and he would not be sent away.

He begged her to stay. He got down on his knees, this strong and driven man, this man who had endured and survived so much, and he pleaded with her. He wept uncontrollably. It was useless. Worse, it was pointless. She did not understand his behavior. She had no frame of reference for doing so. Spirits did not weep or beg. They acted instinctively and out of need. For her, the choice was clear. She was a creature of the forests and the spirit world. He was not. She could not stay with him.