A Candle in the Woods in Winter
Short Story #2
Combing fresh snow from his beard with shaking hands, Mikalash looked up at the sagging thatch of the cabin’s roof. When was the last time that I saw a human being? A month? More? He stepped onto the porch. There was a sizzling. He stepped off, set down his bag and drew forth a pair of slippers. It wouldn’t do to go burning down the cabin. Slippers on, he stepped back onto the porch, and knocked on the door.
No answer. The cabin was as silent as the woods.
Mikalash knocked again. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted. Perhaps he should be on his way. There might be some blueberries on the trellises under the snow. But a feeling in his navel would not let him lift his legs. So he knocked again.
This time there were footsteps. “Paul? Corey? Is that you? Back to bring your Ma to Grelon for the winter?” The door inched open and a face pepped through. The woman could have been around to see the birth of Gwyn. Her eyes were sunk deep behind wrinkles and little more than a few tufts of wispy white hair were visible behind her shawl. On her left cheek there was a birthmark in the shape of a deer that twitched as she frowned. “My Corey, you’ve grown a beard. I never would have thought. Do you have the horses saddled? We’d be better off riding tomorrow if you want to make it to Grelon in one go.”
“I’m not–” Mikalash started.
“You better come in,” the woman continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Do you remember when Da used to take you on the back of the cart with the blueberries and the hogs? If only he could see you now.”
Mikalash stepped inside. The woman continued to chatter to him as if he were her son, and he could not see a way to get a word in edgewise. The interior of the cabin was composed of solely one room, though much of it was empty. A fire warmed a cast iron pot of what looked like stew on one wall, and a bed and a long table, that only had two chairs, occupied the other. Next to the fire, adorned with carvings of some primal storm god, was a wooden cabinet.
“I made your favorite. Leeks and beef with a hint of blueberry. Come have a taste.” She grabbed his hand, but quickly let go. “You’re so warm Corey, are you running a fever?”
“I’m not your son,” Mikalash said. The feeling in his navel gave a little jolt. What? I couldn’t pretend. “I am a son of Gwyn. Come to tell the world of the two flames and salvation.” He hated saying all that, but it was what he had been taught. The hand of Gwyn always leaves a scar.
The woman flushed red and rubbed her eyes. “Dearie me, the eyes again. I only thought. It’s been so long, they said they would be back to get me in the spring, but I haven’t seen a soul in two years. A priest are you?”
“Yes. Sort of.”
“A sort of priest? Paul always said you either gave honor to Samiel or you didn’t. Fat lot of good all that believing did him in the end, but all the same you either believe or you don’t. How can you only sort of serve a God?”
“I’m not really a priest,” Mikalash muttered. “I’m the god of wandering priests.” All of the sons and daughters of Gwyn had their role. Peter was the god of books and scrolls, Alfonso preferred blades and battle. Catherine was the goddess of fields and crops and Myra that of sparkling streams. John of course could be whatever he wanted. They all had their place in the south, in the sunbathed locales of the Inner Sea or the equally lush rivers of Gwyndium. While Mikalash, little old Mikalash, wandered the snowy wastes of Sardia. Spreading their names. “Go on, laugh.”
But unlike the innkeeps and the shepherds south along the road, the old woman did not laugh, but drew herself up straighter, and ran her fingers through her hair, tucking it back underneath her shawl. “We’ve never had a god in here before. All Paul’s praying and Samiel has never even once comes up this road. Not even to Grelon. You’ll have to stay for dinner. There’s Corey’s favorite stew in the hearth and there’s some bread somewhere. It’s a bit hard, but flour lasts you a good long while. And the bowls. Right in the cabinet over there yes. All the way from Heraclia you know. Poet carved.”
I won’t say no to some food. Mikalash opened the cabinet gingerly, taking care not to let his fingers linger too long on the wood. Inside was a variety of iron pots and pans, some rotting dolls made out of old cornhusks, a rock solid piece of bread, a variety of root vegetables and several brown ceramic bowls. Mikalash grabbed the bread first and felt it soften under his finger tips. He wasn’t quite sure why bread didn’t just burn. We are the way our makers made us. He set the bread on the cabinet top, next to the wood sculpture and reached in again for the bowls. They felt cold beneath his fingers and were carved with a flowing script that he was sure Peter would have been able to read.
“Yes, bread on the table there love and bring the bowls here. Did you know they were made in Heraclia. My sons brought them back for me from the south?”
“They are fine bowls my lady,” Mikalash said. “Just the two for us?”
“One for my son too,” she said. “Corey is a growing boy and needs to keep his strength up. You never know when he might be home. My these bowls are already warm. Are you a fire god too or something?”
“It runs in the family,” Mikalash said wryly.
After weeks of nothing but jerky and tack, the stew tasted better than ambrosia. Barely softened bread dipped into a mixture of tough beef, leeks and some unidentifiable root vegetable, that was probably a turnip, soon filled Mikalash’s belly.
The old woman barely touched her food. She was staring at the place they had laid for Corey and the door past it. After the nearly incessant muttering of the entire duration of his stay in the cabin, the silence was palpable.
“I will look for your son in Grelon,” Mikalash said suddenly. “Send him back here.”
“Big strong boy Corey is,” she said, perking up. “Black hair just like his father. He always helped Paul shoe the horses. Said he would take up blacksmithing. How many blacksmiths are there in Grelon? Ten? A hundred? I haven’t been since I was a girl.
“My brother is a blacksmith too,” Mikalash said thinking of Alfonso. “And my sister too. A lot of blacksmiths in the family. I suppose it comes from fire running through your veins.”
“You must miss them,” the woman said.
“I can’t imagine they think of me much,” he replied. “There are hundreds of us. My mother and father are busy.”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t miss them.”
Now it was his turn to lapse into silence.
“What did you say your name was again?” He asked finally.
“I didn’t. Esther. My grandmams name and her grandmams.”
“Esther, can I please have some more of this delicious stew?”
“Help yourself, but make sure to leave some for Paul. He’s always coming in late from the woods in the winter. Praying for some god or another to not bury us. Does it do any good, the praying?”
Mikalash spooned more stew into his bowl. “I don’t know. I don’t suppose there are many wandering priests of Gwyn around these days to pray to me. My brothers and sisters always said it was bit liking having a sweet. You don’t need prayers to survive, but it feels good.”
“No prayers at all? Not from any of the travelers along the road?”
“There are other gods.”
“I’ll pray to you then. Tell my son to come home, God of Wandering Priests.
“Call me Mikalash,” he said. “I will look in Grelon and on the rest of my travels.” He sat and began to spoon more stew into his mouth. His belly was filled with a warm feeling that could not have only been due to the stew.
“And I pray that you one day find your own way home,” Esther said.
“A wandering priest has no home but the road,” he said, thinking of the warm summer sun and cool winter breezes of Gwyndium.
“You don’t seem to have found it there,” she said. “Come, I have not done this much talking in a long while or left this farm in longer. Tell me of your travels, Mikalash.”
And so he did. He started with the grand things: the great gates of Gwyndium, the sparkling, endless waters of the Inner Sea, the high peaks of the Mountains of the Dusk, the crowded cities that hugged the south coast of Sardia. But there was not much to say of those. Instead, he found himself talking about the dog that had followed him up the road for nearly a hundred miles because he had been feeding it little scraps of his jerky. About the farmer who had been giving out sweet lemons just to watch people’s smiles when they realized the fruit wasn’t sour. About the mandolin strings he had woven with his hair so that the musician could play a song for his daughter in time for her birthday. About the meltwater he had brought to a dying horses lips on the side of the road. About the snowball fight he had started with the boys in the last town before the wood.
“And then I lost the road, followed some tree stumps, and ended up here,” he finished.
Esther was asleep in her chair. Mikalash shook his head, stuck halfway between amusement and disappointment. He had wanted to hear what the old woman had to say. Yet, as he reached down to grab Esther’s legs to take her over to the bed, he saw a small smile on her face. Tucking her under the moth-eaten blankets, Mikalash found himself smiling too.
Perhaps these woods aren’t so bad after all. He lay down on the warm stones next to the hearth. When he closed his eyes, for once he did not dream of the towering spires of Gwyndium.
****
The room was cold when he awoke, and white-grey light streamed through the hole in the thatch. Esther lay motionless underneath her blankets. He stood and walked over to the bed. Cold. Not even breath solidified in the air. He touched her forehead. Cold too. Yet underneath all her wrinkles she was still smiling.
Something sizzled on his cheek. Snow from through the thatch no doubt.
Mikalash carried her outside. The snow had ceased and the woods outside the cabin had come alive with the chirping of birds. A pair of rabbits were scavenging the trellises for any spare blueberries. Perhaps spring was not so far away after all.
He laid her down on the snow in front of the barn. It had been like carrying paper. If I had not been here, would they have returned come spring to find her body still frozen in that bed? Mikalash placed a hand on her forehead. He did not know what they did here to send one on, what gods they paid homage to. But he was a son of Gwyn.
Esther grew hot again, feverish and then burst into flame.
There was not much to burn; Gwyn’s flame burnt white hot. Before the rabbits had finished hunting for blueberries and the wind brought the snow clouds back, there was naught but ash upon the ground. Mikalash reached into his bag and removed a candle, placing it gingerly into the center of the ash. This was the only candle he had ever removed from the bag. He waved a hand over the wick and it too burst into flame. It would burn as long as he lived. If anyone ever passed this way again, however unlikely that might be, they would know that in this place someone had lived and loved.
After a quick trip back into the cabin to empty the cabinet of its root vegetables. Mikalash set off through the woods back to the road, bare feet sizzling in new puddles as he went.
Off to Grelon to light more candles in this winter of the world.
This post was something a little different than I usually do: a short story that I wrote my senior year of undergrad. If you liked this short story, please subscribe to the newsletter! This year I will be aiming for a blog post a week, following a rotation of personal updates, book reviews, running writings, and crunchy updates, as well as Spanish and Italian learning updates as we get to them. If you’d like to chat leave a comment below or shoot me an email at deusexvitablog@gmail.com.