She nods, sadness filling her eyes.
“She was so young,” he continues, “only a child when I stumbled upon her. Father Caelus at the monastery had taught us of the other things that roamed the woods, at times wolves, at times gods that masked themselves as wolves. So when I found her, I knew what she was, though I had no real knowledge of how powerful she’d become.” He stares into the small flames dancing in the trough, his eyes going distant. “The goddess came to me that first night.”
He looks up at me, then back to Sage, and it’s like he’s pleading with us to believe him, like he’s letting go of something he’s held tight for too long. “Brighid came to me in the flames—me, a lowly monk. It was a miracle.” He shakes his head like he has trouble believing it himself. “She told me who the child Lily was, told me how vital she was, and asked me to keep her daughter close. And so I did.” He releases a shaky breath. “Until the very end, I stayed with her. And when she was taken from me, when the Cast put her in that place they call the Pit, I thought I would finally die at last. I had been here on this earth so long, surely it was time to bid farewell.” He shakes his head again, looking weary.
“But I waited. I made my home deeper in the wood. And still I stayed.
“Before my Lily had been taken, we did a spell that bound her power, bound her energy and her spirit and her memories, into an owl’s egg. And then we burned it, turning it into ashes that I was to spread in the field once Lily was taken by the Cast—we knew they were coming. It was Lily’s way of being free, even as she was trapped in the Pit. Her sorrow could remain behind. She’d go forward as a mere shell, and feel nothing.” A tear slips down his weathered cheek.
“I was ashamed of what we’d done.” His voice wavers. “Her eyes were dead the day they came for her, nothing real left behind. I felt as if I’d destroyed her, and it was for nothing.” He pauses, swallowing hard. “She had become ashes in a field of bluebells. But after a moon had passed, the goddess Brighid came to me again, this time in the figure of a horned owl. She told me that she’d brought me her second daughter to care for. She told me she had another spell for me to do. And she left me with a golden-and-black egg the size of a melon, along with a lock of brown hair.”
An egg the size of a melon? The words poke at my insides and a chill runs down my spine.
Sage—but that was so long ago.
“That was me,” Sage says, wonder in her voice. “I was born from an egg?”
“You were, child,” Lailoken says. “All children of a goddess are born from an egg.” He stands and walks over, pulling a small box from a nook in the wall of the tree. He brings it over to me and opens it, showing me the contents.
Sitting inside are three large pieces of what look like a broken porcelain bowl, the inside shiny sky blue, the outer swirled in black and gold—the remnants of Sage’s shell. And beside the pieces of shell is a curl of light brown hair, tied with a piece of vine. I frown at the contents, not understanding.
“You gave this bit of hair to my Lily,” he says to me. “Yes?”
“I don’t—” I’m about to say I don’t know what he’s talking about, but then I remember, the silver coin. Queen Lily had asked for a lock of my hair in exchange for a silver coin three nights before she was taken by the Cast. “Yes, I gave her my hair.” And then I thought nothing of it.
“The goddess placed this and the large egg at my feet that night, and she told me to lay one over the other, to cast protection and loyalty between them. I was to give the sturdiness and loyalty of the winter wolf to the source of the hair and the determination and passion of the flame to the life within the egg. I was to speak it over them for as long as they were in my care. And make them into two sides of a coin.”
“How long ago was that?” Sage asks.
He looks to the side, like he’s trying to remember. “I counted the moons, one, two, three . . . the years, one, two, three . . . and the decades, one, two, three . . . and on and on. I moved deeper and deeper into the wood, hiding and keeping it all to ourselves, lost and forgotten. Finally, she hatched. Eighteen years ago.” He shrugs, tipping his head at Sage.
Sage swallows, her eyes turning glassy.
“Your tiny pale body was so delicate,” he continues. “If not for the owls bringing milk and shiny baubles to me from far away, I don’t know how I’d have cared for you. You were such a fragile doll.” He smiles at her softly and reaches out, taking her hand.
A tear slips down her cheek. “But I don’t understand. How did I end up with Lauren?”
“I was told not to keep you past your third year. I didn’t understand, you see, what to do.” Guilt fills his eyes, and he gives her a pleading look. “But when I went into the world again, to find your path for you, I was overwhelmed. It was all a big noise. So many things hurt my eyes, my ears. And I got confused.” He leans forward, like he needs Sage to understand. “I was to follow a trail of gold, that’s what the goddess had said. The gold energy led me to a most horrible place. But I didn’t know. If I’d known what that woman was, I wouldn’t have obeyed, I don’t think.” He looks away, his eyes haunted. “I found the dead child in the green box full of trash down the road. But I’d already left my treasure—you—in its place. When I went back to the woman, she was holding my little fire-haired girl and singing her a song, crying quietly. I thought perhaps . . . perhaps you’d be all right.” He shakes his head, his shoulders sinking. “Perhaps . . . I am so sorry, child. I should not have obeyed.” He dares to look at Sage again. “I went back many times to search for you. But I’d forgotten where I put you. I’d forgotten where the road was. I looked for days and days, finding only sadness and pain.”
Tears streak Sage’s face. She just nods. But she grips his hand back now, like she’s trying to reassure him.
He sniffs and wipes his nose with his wide sleeve. “But all was not lost, as I thought,” he says, his voice brightening. “A sennight ago, this boy brought you to me.” A smile grows on his face. “And in that moment, when I realized who you were, my despair washed away. Things cleared in my mind that had been muddy for so long. I’d nearly forgotten my task, you see. Now I understand what the goddess meant.”
I lean forward. “So you knew who Sage was that day? Why didn’t you tell me all of this before I left with her?”
“And what?” he scoffs. “Reveal the truth before the tale had even begun?” He rises and goes back to plucking mint. “No, no, boy. I marked her with my protection before you left again, so that most would stay out of the way. It was all taken care of. She would be safe, see.”
“Wait, it was you who marked me?” Sage says.
“Of course!” he says. “I wouldn’t dare allow you to be lost from me again.”