Frost 117
“Tell me things you’ll remember,” she said. “The big things. The small things. Everything.”
Urs began. He described the color of her dress - yellow, like the sun - that neither of them had seen in a few days. He told her about elderflower, that it soothed fever and tickled his nose. He told her that he dried yarrow leaves like she’d asked, and ground them into dust. That she was looking at him, with her eyes like fog, made him self-conscious.
He frowned, stopping. Urs reached for her forehead.
“I’m fine,” she said, coughing, weakly pushing his hand away from her, “I’m only dying.”
“You are,” he said, dipping a cloth in a basin of cloudy water. Chunks of pink and purple, dried flower petals, bobbed along the surface. It was useless against whatever was killing her, but she’d asked him to make it, so he did.
“Go on, this is important.”
He told her that he’d mixed willow bark and chili oil in the water, and added ginger because she’d told him once that she liked the smell. He said that some of the neighbors had asked after her, that they’d wanted some tincture or other. He said that, when she’d been sleeping, he’d practice writing and reading.
“Those are yours, you know. The books and the journals, all of it.”
He said he knew. That she’d already promised them to him. That, and the money she’d saved, enough to buy a life above. “I bought a chest today, to carry everything up. It wasn’t much. I bartered some of the oils you’d told me to make. The ones that smell like lavender, but aren’t.”
She nodded, and then kept nodding as she drifted to sleep. She mumbled something Urs didn’t understand, something from the life she’d had before she’d found him.
“The Middens are a cold and wet and dark place,” she said. Her every word was caught between long breaths.
“But they weren’t always that way,” Urs said, lifting a spoonful of broth to her chapped lips. She nodded, closing her eyes as she let the liquid fall to the back of her throat.
“Go on.”
And he did. “Gold and sapphire collected here, in equal measure, as did the lost things from every part of the world. Old socks, runaways, and even the dying words fell below the surface, and were tended to, by the UnGods,” he said, “The UnGods were things of the Under --.”
“-- creatures made outside of the light,” she said, “No God claimed them, not even Death, and no hearth held their welcome. And so, unloved and unwanted, they forge a place for themselves and other things abandoned. A place in-between.”
“The Midden,” he said, after a few moments of quiet, catching her story where she stopped.
The UnGods weren’t real. Her stories weren’t anything more than blasphemy and pretty lies. The Midden, as far as he knew, had always been cold and dark and wet and would always be cold and dark and wet. There was magic in this world, but it wasn’t the magic she’d wanted. And so, she’d invented a world all for herself.
And then she shared it with him.
“I --,” she coughed, hard, specks of sick colored her sleeping gown black and red. “There’s still so much, too much.”
Urs nodded. Things to do, things to say, and more to explain. If only this world was reflected in her stories. If only she can grow truth from soil dirtied with lies.
A silence blooms between them, uninvited. Neither he nor she moves to break it. It lingers, there, between them, between the boy and the woman who named herself Mother.
Mother had taught him that a watched pot never boiled. A trick of the mind, she called it. When you hope desperately for something so singularly it will only ever happen in the slowest way. Time, she’d always said, was fluid as perspective.
He sighed, tending the fire beneath. It sparked as he stirred the flames with dried wood. A precious luxury, here. Most people were left with their own excrements as fuel in the Middens. Plants, of the burning sort, didn’t grow here easily. There was no sun to nourish them.
He dropped a few strands of white willow, a spoonful of pickled lemon rind, and elderflowers in a mortar. He ground the ingredients into a muddle of wet. He continued until the mixture was beaten into a fine paste.
The whole house would smell like citrus, once he’d boiled it into tea. A simple folk remedy to break a fever. Urs would add honey to twist the potion into a salve for a sore throat.
Mother had a hard cough.
The cauldron popped with a sudden boil. His cue to dump the various ingredients in and stir.
It was a delusion. He’d Seen the effects as patients drank this and other folk cures. A small benefit, if ever. A balm writ of nostalgia and belief, nothing more. An aid for the simple and those who might be tricked onto the road to recovery. A witch was too clever to be seduced by such a silly thing.
Mother, even less so. She’d already decided she would die. She lingered only to ensure her legacy. Him.
She directed him with what little breath she had. Her every word was spent on his education. She would die, she said, but she’d planned for that eventually long ago. Mother promised to leave him, yes, but she wouldn’t abandon him.
The curse had stolen the color from her and used it to grow black veins that crept along her pale skin like ivy. They sprouted and splintered from her wrists and neck and grew inwards, towards her failing heart. There wasn’t much Urs - or Mother - could do to stop it. He’d only been trained against mundane illness and Mother was too weak to do much of anything.
And yet, she still tried to teach Urs - to leave him each day with something new.
Affliction, she’d explained, was a cruel magic. Those witches who dabbled in banes could produce tailored ends of the worst sorts. Urs’ had examined her as she’d spoken. At her very core, he Saw a fleshy knot ebb and flow. It sucked in life and color and pulsed out a cloud of fine dust that settled in every corner of her aura. As Mother breathed, so did the curse, matching her heartbeat as it took and took and took.
The curse would take until there wasn’t anything left.
Few things had worked to slow the inevitable. Mother has instructed him on a quickly made paste. Ginger and peppermint and lavender oil. A simple painkiller that easily soaked into her skin. What little relief it bought was gone in minutes. Still, it bought her clarity enough that she could instruct Urs on the important things.
He made the paste in batches. And she taught him what else she could. Names of Spirits who she worked with and the dangers they presented. The art of healing. The art of Necromancy. The secrets of the runes and the rituals strengthened with what the Tower called Scrivening. Seeing, or Semblance was practiced. Mother wanted to make sure Urs saw everything.
That he was prepared to continue on after she was gone.
“You must remember,” she said. “The big things. The small things. Everything.”
The curse had reached her heart. Mother’s every breath was a struggle. She was dying. Urs took longer to realize than he would admit. It was a child’s fantasy, to think mothers were invincible.
But it still felt like his was - or had been. Mother was the Midden’s Witch. She claimed no god and thought those desperate enough to worship were the ones to pity. Her strength was won and earned, and she relied on no one and nothing, aside from her own talent and skill.
“I’ll remember everything.”
Urs thought about how she was. How she’d saved lives. How she’d brought laughter into their lives. How he’d known there’d be no place safer than Mother’s house. That she’d taught him magic and healing and stories. That she’d made sense in a world that was scarier than it should be and showed him there was a way to build something better.
That even here, in the Middens, he could have a home.
He watched them burn her body after she died. A plague, he'd told them, a lie she'd made him swear to tell. See that everything is gone, save what was meant for him to carry onwards. And that's what Urs did.
Urs began. He described the color of her dress - yellow, like the sun - that neither of them had seen in a few days. He told her about elderflower, that it soothed fever and tickled his nose. He told her that he dried yarrow leaves like she’d asked, and ground them into dust. That she was looking at him, with her eyes like fog, made him self-conscious.
He frowned, stopping. Urs reached for her forehead.
“I’m fine,” she said, coughing, weakly pushing his hand away from her, “I’m only dying.”
“You are,” he said, dipping a cloth in a basin of cloudy water. Chunks of pink and purple, dried flower petals, bobbed along the surface. It was useless against whatever was killing her, but she’d asked him to make it, so he did.
“Go on, this is important.”
He told her that he’d mixed willow bark and chili oil in the water, and added ginger because she’d told him once that she liked the smell. He said that some of the neighbors had asked after her, that they’d wanted some tincture or other. He said that, when she’d been sleeping, he’d practice writing and reading.
“Those are yours, you know. The books and the journals, all of it.”
He said he knew. That she’d already promised them to him. That, and the money she’d saved, enough to buy a life above. “I bought a chest today, to carry everything up. It wasn’t much. I bartered some of the oils you’d told me to make. The ones that smell like lavender, but aren’t.”
She nodded, and then kept nodding as she drifted to sleep. She mumbled something Urs didn’t understand, something from the life she’d had before she’d found him.
--
“The Middens are a cold and wet and dark place,” she said. Her every word was caught between long breaths.
“But they weren’t always that way,” Urs said, lifting a spoonful of broth to her chapped lips. She nodded, closing her eyes as she let the liquid fall to the back of her throat.
“Go on.”
And he did. “Gold and sapphire collected here, in equal measure, as did the lost things from every part of the world. Old socks, runaways, and even the dying words fell below the surface, and were tended to, by the UnGods,” he said, “The UnGods were things of the Under --.”
“-- creatures made outside of the light,” she said, “No God claimed them, not even Death, and no hearth held their welcome. And so, unloved and unwanted, they forge a place for themselves and other things abandoned. A place in-between.”
“The Midden,” he said, after a few moments of quiet, catching her story where she stopped.
The UnGods weren’t real. Her stories weren’t anything more than blasphemy and pretty lies. The Midden, as far as he knew, had always been cold and dark and wet and would always be cold and dark and wet. There was magic in this world, but it wasn’t the magic she’d wanted. And so, she’d invented a world all for herself.
And then she shared it with him.
“I --,” she coughed, hard, specks of sick colored her sleeping gown black and red. “There’s still so much, too much.”
Urs nodded. Things to do, things to say, and more to explain. If only this world was reflected in her stories. If only she can grow truth from soil dirtied with lies.
A silence blooms between them, uninvited. Neither he nor she moves to break it. It lingers, there, between them, between the boy and the woman who named herself Mother.
--
Mother had taught him that a watched pot never boiled. A trick of the mind, she called it. When you hope desperately for something so singularly it will only ever happen in the slowest way. Time, she’d always said, was fluid as perspective.
He sighed, tending the fire beneath. It sparked as he stirred the flames with dried wood. A precious luxury, here. Most people were left with their own excrements as fuel in the Middens. Plants, of the burning sort, didn’t grow here easily. There was no sun to nourish them.
He dropped a few strands of white willow, a spoonful of pickled lemon rind, and elderflowers in a mortar. He ground the ingredients into a muddle of wet. He continued until the mixture was beaten into a fine paste.
The whole house would smell like citrus, once he’d boiled it into tea. A simple folk remedy to break a fever. Urs would add honey to twist the potion into a salve for a sore throat.
Mother had a hard cough.
The cauldron popped with a sudden boil. His cue to dump the various ingredients in and stir.
It was a delusion. He’d Seen the effects as patients drank this and other folk cures. A small benefit, if ever. A balm writ of nostalgia and belief, nothing more. An aid for the simple and those who might be tricked onto the road to recovery. A witch was too clever to be seduced by such a silly thing.
Mother, even less so. She’d already decided she would die. She lingered only to ensure her legacy. Him.
She directed him with what little breath she had. Her every word was spent on his education. She would die, she said, but she’d planned for that eventually long ago. Mother promised to leave him, yes, but she wouldn’t abandon him.
--
The curse had stolen the color from her and used it to grow black veins that crept along her pale skin like ivy. They sprouted and splintered from her wrists and neck and grew inwards, towards her failing heart. There wasn’t much Urs - or Mother - could do to stop it. He’d only been trained against mundane illness and Mother was too weak to do much of anything.
And yet, she still tried to teach Urs - to leave him each day with something new.
Affliction, she’d explained, was a cruel magic. Those witches who dabbled in banes could produce tailored ends of the worst sorts. Urs’ had examined her as she’d spoken. At her very core, he Saw a fleshy knot ebb and flow. It sucked in life and color and pulsed out a cloud of fine dust that settled in every corner of her aura. As Mother breathed, so did the curse, matching her heartbeat as it took and took and took.
The curse would take until there wasn’t anything left.
Few things had worked to slow the inevitable. Mother has instructed him on a quickly made paste. Ginger and peppermint and lavender oil. A simple painkiller that easily soaked into her skin. What little relief it bought was gone in minutes. Still, it bought her clarity enough that she could instruct Urs on the important things.
He made the paste in batches. And she taught him what else she could. Names of Spirits who she worked with and the dangers they presented. The art of healing. The art of Necromancy. The secrets of the runes and the rituals strengthened with what the Tower called Scrivening. Seeing, or Semblance was practiced. Mother wanted to make sure Urs saw everything.
That he was prepared to continue on after she was gone.
--
“You must remember,” she said. “The big things. The small things. Everything.”
The curse had reached her heart. Mother’s every breath was a struggle. She was dying. Urs took longer to realize than he would admit. It was a child’s fantasy, to think mothers were invincible.
But it still felt like his was - or had been. Mother was the Midden’s Witch. She claimed no god and thought those desperate enough to worship were the ones to pity. Her strength was won and earned, and she relied on no one and nothing, aside from her own talent and skill.
“I’ll remember everything.”
Urs thought about how she was. How she’d saved lives. How she’d brought laughter into their lives. How he’d known there’d be no place safer than Mother’s house. That she’d taught him magic and healing and stories. That she’d made sense in a world that was scarier than it should be and showed him there was a way to build something better.
That even here, in the Middens, he could have a home.
--
He watched them burn her body after she died. A plague, he'd told them, a lie she'd made him swear to tell. See that everything is gone, save what was meant for him to carry onwards. And that's what Urs did.
