The Drowned Woods
Emily Lloyd-Jones
To Brittney—who read some of my first stories, followed me into an old copper mine, and never drop-kicked me out of a second-story window
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THE FARMER HAD four ordinary children, which was why the magic of the fifth came as a surprise.
The daughter was born with hair too dark to be golden but too light to be brown. She was a clear-eyed little thing who sat quietly in her mam’s arms. That night, the farmer brought the child outside. Omen-seeking was unpredictable and the results often vague—putting snails beneath a basin in hopes the trails of slime would spell out a beloved’s name; grass taken from beneath holly trees; knotted yarn trailing from windows to see what might be caught.
There were more certain ways to test for magic, but the farmer could not afford a hedgewitch.
It was said that in the cities magic had been tamped out. The tylwyth teg had been banished by iron on every street corner, by roads made of rock instead of packed earth, and by the sheer prevalence of humans. But in the wild country, the expanse of rolling hills and old forests seemed to invite the unexpected. Parents brought their babes out to meet the night—and see what awaited them. The farmer had heard tales of a neighboring village where a newborn had been visited by a flock of ravens. That lad had grown up to sow such death upon the battlefield that several princes sought his services—until a poisoner slipped something into the lad’s cup of ale.
The farmer waited with his newborn daughter, but there were no flocks of birds nor strange colors in the sunset. He was about to take the babe indoors when a friendly call stopped him. A weaver from the village had come to deliver a gift of a blanket for the new babe. She cooed over the small child, and in those moments before the farmer could ask her inside, rain began to fall.
It was the thick, misty rains that often sank upon the lands. The farmer raised his arm to shield his daughter, but then he realized there was no need.
The rain did not touch him. It fell—and then seemed to hit some invisible roof, sloughing away without splashing upon him or the babe. The weaver, who stood an arm’s length away, was flecked with rainwater. Her gaze fell on the babe and she drew in a sharp breath. “Take her inside,” she told the farmer, her voice low. “Take her inside and do not tell anyone.”
The farmer was startled. “What?”
“If the prince finds out what she is,” said the weaver, her face drawn tight, “he will want her.”
“Why?” asked the farmer.
The weaver shook her head. “Do not let her swim. Keep her away from rivers and creeks.”
The farmer was frightened by the weaver’s sharp words, so he agreed. He never spoke of the encounter with the weaver, instead treating the babe as if nothing had happened.
And for a time, all was well.
At first glance, the farmer’s fifth daughter looked an ordinary child: She played with her siblings, helped herd the chickens into the barn, threw clods of dirt at passing foxes, and chatted with those who came to buy crops from her father. The farmer could not afford to keep a strong child indoors and unseen—he had need of another pair of hands.
But as time wore on, it became clear why the weaver had been so troubled.
Rain never touched the girl. She could stand in a thunderstorm and remain utterly dry. She found small streams in the woods, tracing them to their sources with as little thought as finding her way home. She charmed her siblings with dancing mud puddles. She froze small pools of water so that they could slide across the ice. She played in creeks, directing the ebb and flow of the water to her whims. When the summer became overlong, she brought water up through the soil to the dry crops. Her father tried to stop her, told her that such magics were dangerous, but the girl reveled in her power.
She was a headstrong girl whose fingers were gentle when taking eggs from beneath the warm hens—but if she saw cruelty, her temper flared to life. When she found a handful of older children kicking a stray dog, she picked up a stick and tried to drive them off. They laughed and tossed her to the ground, and she committed their faces to memory. For a month afterward, the dirt outside of their front doors was churning, sucking mud that stained their boots.
And when she was eight years old, she saved a child.
The winter rains had lashed the lands for weeks on end, leaving the river a churning, muddied mess. The child was little more than a babe, toddling too far out of his mother’s grip. He slipped on the mud, slid into greedy waters that pulled him away too quickly for his parents to save him. The boy was yanked downstream, too frightened to utter a cry.
It was the farmer’s daughter who heard the shouting of the parents. She ran barefoot to the river. She felt the raw power of the seething water up through the soles of her feet as she raced toward the overrun banks. Ignoring the warnings of the other villagers, the girl stepped into the river. The froth and foam calmed around her, going unnaturally still. The girl hastened to the boy, pulling him into her arms. She was barely old enough to carry him to safety, but she did it. And the moment her feet left the river, it returned to rushing and pushing at its banks.
The boy’s parents were grateful and thanked her again and again, but those who had seen began to whisper among themselves.