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Date Posted: 12:47:37 02/03/09 Tue
Author: celtgirl
Subject: Pamela>>> (bit of a spoiler in this bit, just so you're aware of that, in case you'd rather avoid such things. :)
In reply to: celtgirl 's message, "The Tipping Point Approaches..." on 11:39:20 02/03/09 Tue

copyright 2009 Cindy Brandner

She stopped, the forest suddenly seemed very still, the way it often did, as though there were an entire world taking place within it, that paused at the approach of human feet. That song and music halted, and even breath was stopped and wine in the act of being poured, froze in midair. She sometimes had that feeling even in the house, when she had come in after chores or errands; there would be a still that spoke of action abruptly halted, or pipes and flutes stopped mid-note, and a curtain would flutter as though a light breeze had passed. It was not an ill feeling though, but rather that something existed side by side with them in this house, upon this land. And though to say that such presences were benign did not seem right, nor were they in any way malevolent.

She stepped deeper into the bottle green dim, stooping with care to pick the mallow that were growing with such abandon this summer. Finbar bounded ahead of her joyously, picking up sticks and dropping them to bound onto the next one. High in the oaks the blackbirds were voicing what seemed an enormous amount of egregious complaints.

She hummed to herself as she walked, secure in the knowledge that Conor was well looked after by Gert, who smothered him with her grandmotherly attentions to the point that Pamela was certain no woman would ever be able to measure up once the laddie was grown.

A breeze fluttered by, moving the curls against her neck and providing a welcome breath of air. It was humid in the wood, with the damp of all things green and the soft decay of fallen trees. A shimmer of silken pewter, flashing in and out of the maidenhair ferns and the dappled hollows and mossed edges of long buried stones, told her that Finbar was on the scent of some small creature.

She held her face up and took a deep breath, relishing the moisture. The mottled and watery light was soothing, relaxing something in her core that she wasn’t aware was tightly held. The scent and mystery of plants was a sort of food to her, she felt at home with green things, aware however, that they held their own counsel and secrets, that were whispered about in the night on wind and through water. She rarely felt more relaxed than she did in the company of plants.

With her history of miscarriage and stillbirth, relaxation was not a thing that came easily these days. She did her best to display an exterior calm for Casey’s sake, though. The man worried enough for both of them, Lord knows. He had become particularly strict of late, insisting that she have a liedown the minute he came through the door at night, while he started on supper. Though that might be more in the way of self-preservation on the man’s part, she thought, cooking not being her forte by any stretch of the imagination. Still, she enjoyed the wee bit of solitude a nap provided, Conor was proving to be as busy of a tot as Casey admitted he himself had been.

As glad as she would be to have this pregnancy successfully come to its end, still she had enjoyed this time with Conor and with Casey too. Two babies meant ten times as busy and distracted, or at least that’s what all other mothers told her. Besides, and here she smiled softly to herself, her husband was the sort of man who truly appreciated a pregnant woman and her hormones. Mind you, admittedly, it wasn't like they were the sort of couple built for abstinence for more than a day or two at a go, pregnant or not.

Her musings were brought to a halt by a sharp bark from Finbar up ahead, invisible in the heavy foliage. A small spike of adrenaline shot through her. At this point in a pregnancy it was hard not to feel entirely vulnerable to any unexpected event. She moved toward to the echo of the dog’s bark, which hung in the air, reverberating like a warning and thrummed at the base of her spine, adding to the delicate ache that she only now realized had been there all morning. The sense of something other being present grew heavy again and she glanced about, a shiver threading its way down her spine and settling in with the ache. There was no one to be seen, but then it wasn’t the sense of human eyes watching that put the fine hairs up on the nape of her neck. She would find the dog and go home, a cup of tea was sounding far more sensible than a walk just at present.

Finbar was scrabbling at the roots of an enormous oak, that stood alone in the midst of ash and elm. The floor of the forest here was smooth with moss and fern, and the still heavy light that seemed to come up from the ground, rather than down from the sky. Fairy light, Casey would have said, and not good fairies either.

“Finbar,” she said sternly, “come on, boy, we need to head home."

Like most males, Finbar had finely tuned selective hearing. All around his paws lay a welter of torn moss and black soil, but he still dug and now was whining, deep brown eyes occasionally looking up at her as if to ask why she didn’t help, if she was in such a tearing hurry to leave. Last time he had dug in this agitated fashion, he had pulled up a cow skull. She strode, as well as her belly would allow, over to him, only to have him back away from the hole he had dug and growl low in this throat, hackles up.

“What is it, boy?” Finbar had crowded close to her legs, a fine trembling apparent beneath his rough hide.

Where Finbar’s paws had scrabbled the turf was overturned, and underneath it lay a flat stone. She bent over to look, for there were strange markings on it, cut deeper into the rock than any scratch Finbar could possibly have inflicted. She lowered herself awkwardly to the ground, just hoping she would be able to get back up. She ran her fingers over the damp, cool surface, feeling the pebbled dirt roll into the crevices of her palm, her fingertips easing into the deeply-scored lines, that held no random shape. She looked more closely, bending sideways to avoid the great mound of her stomach. The carved lines looked human in shape, crude, but with the definite outlines of arms and legs and head with a burst of hair. A woman, from what she could make out, a woman pregnant like herself, for where the midriff ought to be, was a great round of belly. She wondered briefly if this had been some sort of fertility stone, where women came to offer sacrifices during times of barren-ness. She touched the woman’s belly, noting that the centre held a deep hollow- no sooner had her finger traced the bowl, when she felt a sharp pain in her own belly, deep and low, striking with a hard resonation like iron against a bell.

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