No mortal heard the sound those roots made when their weighty grip upon the soil was lost to them. No mortal saw the desperate clawing at the earth, the very life snapping from the trunk as the ground crumbled, shivered with the cacophony of destruction. How could I sleep, tell me, for it had awakened the very rage in me.

My oak trees outlive men by hundreds of years, yet it is these mortals with but a few seasons to their names that claim the wisdom of God in their insect hours upon this earth.

I have no time for sweet, enchanting tales that fool the reader with lies and false promises. Too long I have lived and seen, and seen yet never said, been counselled strong to leave off the telling of my tale. What care have I for such timid sentiments? Let the Devil make his judgment.

Do you not know me? I was born from the womb of the earth, nursed with the milk of the moon. Flame gave me three bodies, one soul. In between lies my invisibility. I am the maiden, the mother, the crone, in all I am one. You think that I am unlike you. Look again. I am the dark side of the glass, proud to own my power for good or for ill.

My sorcery, unlike your malcontent prayers, cannot be undone. I relish my powers to shift my shape without boundaries, to move freely between the holy trinity of women. No church would ever make me give up my body in all its lustful glory to a fleshless lord. For what purpose? To be tamed, to live in servitude, to be robbed of my mystery?

Why then should I remain silent just when the mortal world has decided to overthrow magic in favour of religion and rational thought? When our ways are about to be sacrificed to the Lord of Despair, he whose feet never touched this earth of mine?

I could have dreamed my way through such lunacy, deep under my trees, wrapped safe in darkling sleep and all that happened would never have happened. For the loss of one oak tree I put my curse on he who claimed my church, who had the arrogance to fell my cathedral. I might have forgiven him one of my glorious, bejewelled treasures, but Francis Thursby, Earl of Rodermere, would have none of it. Foolish jester. He had no idea at whom he jangled his bells.

Come then, follow me down, for I am but the crack between the words, a riddle to be solved. Come, follow me, into the shadow of a sorceress’s spell and think no more of my presence. I am but the unseen, all-knowing storyteller.

No man should have dared to wake me. No man. No man.

There is little merit in sticking pins in time, in searching for a date to tie this story to. Suffice to say it is set in an England ruled by a faerie queen, a period of ruffles and lace, of wrought velvet and blanched satins, silk stockings costing a king’s ransom. It is the age of imagination, when the philosopher’s stone would make gold of your dreams. A time when the world became curved and the seas led to strange lands and brought back unknown treasures. It is the day when the play be everything, and all men’s lives had their season there. And it would have meant nothing to the sorceress.

In her chamber deep underground she dressed in all her finery. Her petticoat was the colour of damask rose and in the embroidered stitchery lay her magic, ancient as snakes, the very weave of the cloth testament to her power. She wore her crown of briars on her amber hair, a ruff of raven’s feathers, a farthingale embroidered with beetles black as jet. Her skirt borrowed from midnight’s wardrobe showed the hem of her petticoat beneath. СКАЧАТЬ

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