Circe's Gifts

Chapter 1

Part One: The Enchanted Forest

Chapter One

Few peasants from the village sitting at the forest's edge ever saw Circe, the Lady of the Woods. Those who did chance to spot her when she walked the edge of her forest described the woman as an aged, gray-haired crone, with piercing eyes, and always followed by a horde of fearsome beasts.

They were wrong, of course, but they held to their myth even in the occasional face of reality. No one ever looked for anything more than what they expected to see. The Lady was ageless, not aged. Her hair wasn't gray, but moonlight silver, and her eyes -- the color of the green forest leaves -- did not pierce; they simply saw the world in a way that humans could not.

As for the fearsome beasts -- well, her usual companions were a tailless mouse, a half-lame cat, and a one-eyed, soft-tempered she-wolf.

Other creatures sometimes walked the woods with Circe; even the wildest bear and boar grew tame in her presence. They knew the Lady of the Woods protected them in these few acres of wilderness preserved in a world increasingly filled with human places. Wild, wounded creatures came to her in their times of need. She tended and healed them. Some, like her usual three companions, remained longer than others, but most went back to their wilder ways. Her little cottage would have grown quite crowded otherwise.

The people of the nearby villages knew not to hunt in her sacred refuge. If a wounded animal reached her domain, no hunter -- human or otherwise -- followed after it. In fact, no people would enter the area, and they shunned not only the woods, but also the pretty glade, the clear water pond, and the small, neat cottage as though the spot sat just the other side of the border into the hells.

Unsafe, the locals explained to any stranger. You can feel it the moment you step near that line that separates the open forest from her lands.

The witch, whom some knew to call Circe, had lived in her wild place for so long that no one remembered her arrival and though the villagers and farmers didn't speak well of her, they hadn't anything evil to say either. In fact, the local fields suffered far fewer depredations from wild creatures than in many nearby villages. The people even made her gifts on certain days; pretties that they left along the border of her land. The villagers and Circe lived in common goodwill that they best maintained by ignoring each other as much as possible.

Then, late one summer day, a young and wounded prince stumbled into Circe's sanctuary.

Circe had sat on the crude stone bench beside the pond for several hours on that fateful day. She heard the baying of dogs and the shriek of the horns long before any human could have and hours before the hunted stepped into her realm. She sat and petted Dylan, urging the nervous cat to stay calm. Kalliope, the one-eyed wolf, lay at her feet, ears twitching as the noises came ever closer. No wounded human had ever run to her lands, but she sensed that the hunters had pushed this boy beyond reason.

They wouldn't dare follow their prey into her --

And then one did.

Circe's cry of surprise startled Dylan. The large, gray stripped cat leapt from her lap, flaying through the air as though he thought he could fly, and then landed unceremoniously at the edge of the pond on the wet and muddy ground. He made a howl of protest and leapt straight over Kalliope as he darted toward the cottage and some safe, dry corner. Dylan's lame back right leg gave him little trouble as he rushed into the darkness of the building. Dylan often pretended he could barely walk at all in the hopes of getting more treats and pets. If Circe hadn't felt a moment of outraged surprise at the intrusion, she would have laughed.