The Rhythm of Enchantment

By Blessing Gibson

Sylva sensed the stranger entering the wood long before he arrived. With dirty, travel-worn clothes and wind-tossed, tangled hair, he reached the cottage at last. With relief and surprise written equally on his face, he took in the smoke rising from the cob chimney and the chickens clucking in the yard. He humbly asked for any provisions she could spare and shelter for the night. His eyes were kind, but behind the dark brown of his irises, she saw a tumultuous sea beset by screaming, wild gales. She sighed as she led him inside. This wouldn’t go unnoticed by the old woman.

Sylva let him shift uneasily underneath the old woman’s milky gaze for a long moment before she offered him any explanation.

“My grandmother cannot hear or see you,” she said simply, “But she knows you are here.”

He stepped forward and kissed the old woman’s white-whiskered cheek in polite greeting, withdrew quickly, and averted his eyes momentarily as though embarrassed. Sylva laughed at his discomfort. “Only cheeks as smooth as stone, have you kissed before, prince?” The moment the words left her mouth, her stomach clenched in regret.

“I have not said I am a prince,” he said, brows furrowed and eyes studying her sharply.

“Oh, it is your clothes,” she stumbled into a reply, warmth flooding her face, “Though dirty, they look finely made, like a prince’s.”

“He is no prince,” chuckled the old woman from her bed beside the hearth. Feeling the sting of having been wrong twice, Sylva pressed her lips together and turned away to put together the evening meal before any more thoughtless words spilled out of her mouth.

They ate together quietly, outside, the twilight dimming the gold light into shadowy blues. The cottage had grown darker; the firelight in the hearth seemed to have grown brighter against the shades of black. When night had fully descended and engulfed the whole wood, the old woman brought her cup to her lips with trembling hands, drank deeply, and then directed her words toward the stranger.

“You must leave now.” Her voice was hard, and her lips curled into a snarl.

Sylva went quickly to the old woman’s side and took her withered hand.  “We cannot turn him out into the wood now,” her heart whispered anxiously.

“Show him out,” commanded the old woman, ignoring her plea.

Frustration and agitation at the old woman tangled Sylva’s thoughts as she showed the confused stranger the door. As he stepped out into the night, anxiety crinkled his forehead, and his fear showed in the quickness of his footsteps. Sylva closed the door.

“I can tell you are upset, Sylva,” purred the old woman.

“What did you do?” Sylva’s heart was pounding angrily.

“Under the full moon he shall become a stag,” the old woman said, as she tapped her long, sharp fingernails against the mattress, counting out the rhythm of the enchantment. “The wind will carry his scent to the wolves.”

 “What did you see that makes him deserve this?” Sylva flung her thoughts at the old woman.

“Trust me. This is for you, Sylva,” the old woman said. Tenderness flooded her voice. “Above all, I will always take care of you.”

Later, Sylva lay still in her bed until the old woman’s breathing changed into deep, slumbering breaths. Then she slipped quietly from the cottage and into the moonlight. Its beams slid and fell over her body like shimmering scarves. In the few steps from the cottage door to the trees, the change happened. The full moon’s magic slipped over her comfortably, like her favorite woolen dress, and through her, like the icy-fire of a cold plunge into the stream. It transformed her from an upright, two-legged human into fleet-footed doe. Her breath quickened. No matter how many times the change happened, it always filled her with an intensely piercing feeling of being alive.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of the wood, the peppery leaves that rustled underfoot, and the moist brown earth that squished between her hooves. The wind whispered by, brushing through her fur. She sniffed it, drank it in, and sifted through it with her senses. Cool, diamond-colored water flowed in the stream to the north. Sharp, sweet grass from the west tickled her nostrils and made her mind wander for a moment as she imagined its taste on her tongue. Then the image came: the flash of fur, jaws that dripped with drool, followed by an eerie howl that curdled her blood—the wolves!

She ran through the wood toward the sound of bodies in chase—the labored breathing and shrill howls. She saw the wolves, their dark blurs racing through the shadows, their paws throwing dirt behind them. At the front of the pack, barely out of reach of the snapping jaws, ran the stag. His eyes were wide with terror, and his sides were lathered in sweat as he dashed up a slope and careened over the other side. He scrambled over dead branches and attempted to leap over a boulder. His upper body caught on the top as his back legs scraped at the stone and kicked in the air frantically. Sylva dashed forward, but not before a wolf lunged at the stag and sank its teeth into one of his hind legs.

She sailed over top of the wolves and landed firmly at the front of the pack. Then, with her front foot, she stamped the rhythm of the enchantment. You will be drawn away. The wolf released the stag’s leg and turned toward her, yellow eyes bright with hunger. Sylva fled, and the pack pursued her.

As Sylva led the wolves through the wood and far from the stag, her heart pounded in her chest, and her lungs felt like scalded water. Her limbs begged her to stop, to give up, and lie down as meat for the wolves, rather than go on. She was so distracted by her anguish that she didn’t sense the old woman until she heard her yowl, long and screeching, echoing through the trees. She felt the rhythm of the old woman’s enchantment in her heartbeat; you will fall into deep sleep. The wolves behind her slowed, their breath became longer, as they staggered and stumbled, until, at last, they fell asleep on the forest floor. 

The old woman leapt gracefully down to the ground from a nearby maple tree. A ghostly white shadow that slipped through the trees, her paws were soundless on the leaves and moss. As she approached, Sylva’s heart pulsed quickly in her chest. Her body quivered, in part from the adrenaline still in her blood from the chase, but mostly because she had never before defied the old woman. The old woman stopped and sat down in front of Sylva, eyes like two pale moons. She stared through Sylva, her gaze reproaching. Neither one said anything. Then the old woman raised her head and sniffed past Sylva into the trees.

“He waits for you,” she said.

Sylva turned her head and saw the stag hanging back in the darkness of the forest. His eyes were fixed on her as he pondered the sight before him: a doe and a lynx who communed under ancient trees.

“Don’t go to him, Sylva,” the old woman purred. Her voice was gentle yet firmer than ironwood.

“What did you see that I did not?” Sylva felt her body constrict and vibrate in anger as she thought these words.

“Evil intentions lurk in that sea, Sylva.”

“I am more powerful than evil intentions,” Sylva retorted, pawing the ground.

The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “Tonight, I had to save you from wolves, child.”

“You didn’t save me.” Sylva tossed her head, her pride stung, “I was leading them away from him. You do not trust me, or believe in my strength!”

Sylva waited for the old woman to say what she longed to hear—you are strong and powerful, and I trust in your Sight. Silence lingered in the cool air between them. Sylva snorted and turned away from the old woman.

“I have warned you,” the old woman snarled, but Sylva did not turn back.

 Silvery threads of fear and anticipation ran through her as she stepped toward the stag. When she had come face to face with him, it struck her that she did not know why she wanted to be near this stranger. The wood may have been lonesome for some, but it had never felt that way for her. Other people had wandered, dazed, into their clearing before, and Sylva had not defied the old woman to befriend them. Sylva shook the clouding thoughts from her mind and nudged the stag until he limped out of the shadows into the moonlight. She studied his bloodied back leg.

“I will make a healing potion for you in the morning,” she said, first in the magic language, then in deer language. He stared back at her blankly. His mind is still a human’s, she thought to herself and pushed aside the disappointment—the honeysuckle sweet hope that perhaps he was even a little like her.

He followed behind her as she showed him the wood, the secret glens filled with wispy, ethereal beings, spirits of mosses and trees, water and earth. She had him bathe his leg in the diamond water of the stream. She spoke to him freely and told him all the stories of the places sweeter to her than wild honey. She led him to the glade of delicious grass and clover. He understood nothing of what she said, but he followed her obediently and gazed intently at her as though longing to understand. After some time, Sylva noticed him beginning to struggle to keep up. His breath was jagged, he stumbled from exertion, and his leg bled afresh. She found them a soft bed of star moss and lay down. He lay next to her, and she watched him close his eyes and fall asleep.  Sylva’s eyelids drooped and then closed.   

Sylva stood at the edge of a sea. The sound of the blue-black waves thundered in her eardrums, and the wind screamed wildly around her, biting her face and snapping her clothes. The old woman’s voice cried out in distress from somewhere in the froth and foam. Panicked, Sylva pressed herself into the wind and down into the icy waves. A liquid arm rose out of the sea towards her, holding a blade that dripped with water.   

Sylva started upright. Dawn eased over the wood, dew clung to the grass, and soft light filtered through mist and dappled the tree leaves. The stranger was returning to himself. As the last of his deer form faded, he leapt up in haste and reached into his belt. Sylva scrambled up to face him, knowing already what he held in his outstretched hand.

“You’re a Hunter,” she said; her voice was so calm it surprised her. She felt a numbness, a dazed bewilderment. His dark sea had hidden it from her—her Sight had failed her. She raised her hand and was about to tap the rhythm of the enchantment, to end this Hunter, to keep him from causing harm.   

“I have to do this,” he whispered through tight lips, his face twisted as though in pain. “You don’t know what she has done.”

Sylva stopped. “Who?”

He shook his head. “It would have been better if you’d remained a deer.” He said sadly, his eyes and posture shifting into one of resolve as his muscles tensed. He sprang toward her. Sylva quickly snapped her fingers, and he stumbled down to the ground, a fleeting moment of shock on his face before his eyes widened and his face was swallowed up in fur, his hands changed into hooves, and his wild hair spun out into antlers.

“Perhaps it will be better for you to remain a deer,” she said and then raced back toward the cottage. She enchanted the wind to press against her back, to propel her forward. She stumbled, short of breath through the open cottage door. The cottage was dim, lit only by the pale morning light. Her hands trembled in anticipation by her side, ready to create the rhythm of enchantment. The sound of strained breathing led her further inside. Her Sight grew hazy; it felt like she grasped at mist, silky tendrils of twilight, as it slipped quickly through her fingers. That the old woman was in danger was the only clear thing she saw, and it pierced her heart like a shard of glass. 

At the hearth, a woman was seated—youthful, beautiful, demure—a fake form, used to deceive fools.

“I’m not as easily tricked as your Hunter,” Sylva scoffed and tapped a rhythm out with her foot: Be made known. The illusion folded off the woman like a cloak and revealed her as she was. In her hand was a staff made of gnarled branches fused together around slate grey stones. She was a Stone Enchantress. Sylva’s heart jolted in her chest as the mist rolled away from her eyes and she suddenly saw the wood in her Sight—its ancient trees lay dead on the forest floor, severed trunks scarred with stone axes, the soft green moss torn up and the ground scraped away, revealing grey stone. Everything was shades of slate. Everything was sterile and silent.

The enchantress rose, Sylva saw a flicker of fear in her eyes as she realized that Sylva had broken through the haze into her intentions.

“I would not enchant, if you want your guardian to live,” the enchantress said and gestured with her staff to the old woman who lay still as stone in the corner behind her. Sylva cried out and rushed forward, but then stopped as the enchantress pressed her staff to the old woman’s chest, making her gasp and clutch the air, searching for breath.

“Stop!” Sylva screamed.

“Then surrender this wood to me,” the enchantress said and pressed the staff harder into the old woman.

 Sylva’s fingers tapped wildly, but no spell stopped the enchantress as she pulled the old woman’s breath away. Sylva’s mind searched frantically for more enchantments, but storm clouds billowed in and wind began to wail in her ears. She sensed him coming; she felt the vibration of his hooves as they drummed the ground as he ran. The enchantress looked surprised as the stag burst into the cottage. Suddenly Sylva saw it clearly, like the sunrise bursting through the forest. With one hand she beat the rhythm with her palm against her thigh, and with the other, she reached over and clutched one of the stag’s antlers. It sent the rhythm through his nerves and into his muscles; he lowered his head and lunged forward. His antlers pierced through the enchantress; her staff slammed onto the floor. As she fell, dead, the impact broke the stones loose from the branches of the staff and sent them skittering across the floor.

Sylva dropped down beside the old woman, her white eyes fluttered open as she slipped a withered hand to Sylva’s face and faintly tapped the rhythm against her cheek: It is handed over. Sylva caught her hand as it slipped from her face, and the old woman’s breath released and did not draw in again. Sylva was lost in her tears until the sound of the stag scraping his hooves against the floor caused her to turn around. She saw him as he tried to gather the stones scattered across the floor with his hooves. He moved painfully, limping on his wounded leg. She stood to her feet, her eyes and face hot from crying.

“What do you want with them?” she asked him as she scooped the stones up into her hands and looked them over. They were plain, tiny chips of jagged rock. She tapped her foot. Be made known. She faced the stag.

“I understand.” She said softly.

He fell to the floor as her enchantment returned him to a human. Then he picked himself up, eyeing her cautiously, eyeing the stones in her hands with painful longing.

“Why has she taken your mother from you?” Sylva asked him.

“My father,” his body bent sorrowfully, “—made a pact with her, to trade his wife for an enchantment to create a son, an heir to his throne. She took my mother when I came of age, and I have searched for her ever since, until eventually, I made my own bargain with her and became her Hunter in exchange for my mother’s freedom.”

“You have trespassed the wood with evil intentions,” Sylva said as she drew up and fixed her eyes firmly on his. “As the guardian of this wood, I uphold the magic, and the magic says you must be punished.”

Sylva stepped forward. His eyes shifted anxiously, and fearful thoughts ran across his face.

“Hold out your hand.” She commanded him, and he obeyed. She tipped the stones into his palm. “Your mother was not the only one the Stone Enchantress had taken.” She said. “This is your charge, Hunter, return all these stones to their families, to their homes, and I will forgive you.”

She watched him leave through the trees, taking his frothing sea and his storm winds with him. She had taught him the rhythm of the enchantment to free those locked in the stones while she had cleaned and wrapped his wounded leg. For a moment, her heart faltered. Her brow creased in worry. The old woman would not have approved of giving knowledge of such strong magic to him. Sylva straightened her shoulders and shook away the doubt.

I am strong and powerful, she thought to herself, and I trust my Sight.

Blessing Gibson lives in the Finger Lakes region of NYS with her husband and two kiddos. She works as a ballet instructor, and barista, and writes in all the little cracks of time. She takes her inspiration from life, nature, fairy tales, and plant lore.