Where the Path Leads – Chapter 21
Where we are in the story:
In Chapter 20 – “Coming Clean,” Emily received help on her quest from an unlikely source, a gnome named Oderic, who taught her woodland skills like building a fire and finding food.
Chapter 21: Oderic’s Tale
For two days they camped near the spreading oak, allowing Gabriel to lie on the moss and recover his strength, his wound beginning to heal.
Emily and Oderic got to know one another, and he taught her useful things to know in the forest–like the cooler, damper side of a slope is usually the northern side, and the warmer, drier side, usually the southern. If you’re following a river, take note whether you’re walking upstream or downstream so you can remember how to retrace your path back if need be. He reminded her how to mark the passage of time by the sun’s movement.
As they foraged for food, she followed Oderic without worry since he had wrapped cattail leaves around her bare feet to prevent further injury. He even showed her how the heads of cattails when they burst contain a soft, fluffy substance, good for pillow and mattress stuffings or to staunch bleeding. He made a fishing pole from a willow branch, hemp string, and a hook cleverly carved from a porcupine quill, and that night they had fish to fry. She peeled away the grey skin of the trout and hungrily slipped the white meat into her mouth. Oderic carefully fed some to Gabriel, then began telling her the story of how he’d come to be there.
“I didn’t always live in Blackwood forest,” he said. “Rather, I came from another forest, deep in Saxony. I dwelt there in the house of my mother and father, Hildegard and Frederic.
“There were abundant forests in Saxony and many gnomes lived there, but for some reason, the Saxons decided to leave, sail the uncharted seas to explore new lands and find other homes.
“So a great conference was called by our King, Kuwalden, and his Queen, Aelfwine. Kuwalden addressed everyone. He said, ‘This is a momentous time in our history. The Great People are migrating to new lands and some of us must accompany them, since they need our assistance. New homes and new lives await those with courage.’
“I remember it like yesterday, even though I was a young gnome, barely a hundred. I hadn’t even come before the local gnome council yet to be recognized as an adult. But a great buzz of discussion arose at the conference after King Kuwalden’s speech, and my father turned to me and said, ‘Oderic, you must go to this new land. Saxony has been our home for more generations than memory extends back, but this is an opportunity that will never come again.’
“My eyes filled with tears because I knew he meant that I should go without him and mother. Both were 400 years old then and wouldn’t consider making such a trip.
“ ‘Don’t be upset, my boy,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t send you away to a new land alone. I mean you should take your sister with you.’ My twin sister, Helga, and my mother were standing next to us. Helga was overjoyed at the thought of adventure, so I could hardly admit my own reluctance.”
Oderic finished feeding Gabriel the last bit of fish, then took out his raspberry mead and poured some into the carved staghorn cup. While he took a long draught, Emily waited to hear what had happened.
“The Saxon men came here in long boats to this new land,” he continued, “and it soon became clear they meant to take their new homes by force.” His bushy white eyebrows knit together and he pursed his lips. “That’s not the gnome way. We’ve always prided ourselves on being a peaceful, just society, so we couldn’t accompany them in their long boats or we, too, would be perceived as invaders. We wanted to help the residents of this land as much as the newcomers.
“Help them with what?”
He looked at her slightly annoyed.
“Haven’t I helped you, Emily? Build a fire, gather food. Haven’t I repaired Gabriel’s wound?”
She nodded sheepishly. Certainly she was better off since Oderic had appeared, and she didn’t know what would have happened to Gabriel without him.
“Gnomes have always helped mortals with certain tasks, like healing their animals, milking their cows if necessary, rescuing those who are lost, anything that’s needed.
“Anyway, the first gnomes accompanied the Saxons to a green and lovely island, this home we now call Angleterra. They decided that future gnomes coming to Angleterra should find other means of transportation. That’s when the unicorns agreed to help.”
She must have looked disbelieving because he stopped and cocked his head to one side, puzzled.
“You don’t know about them? There were many of them here at the time and they flew on wind currents to Saxony. It was no trouble for them to bring us here by the hundreds. Helga and I came on Alpha Centauri, named after the brightest star in the sky. He’s as beautiful as his name implies, and he brought us right here, to Blackwood Forest. We’re old friends with him still, and I’m indebted to him for all I now have.”
Emily had been listening with her knees tucked up under her chin, fascinated, but now she frowned.
“Oderic, when I met you, you said you were standing near your birth tree. But how could it be planted here when you were born in Saxony?”
“Gnomes always tell their age by a birth tree, so when we left Saxony and came here, we had to find another tree that was approximately the same age as we were. Helga and I started looking for one as soon as we got here, but we had quite a difference of opinion about that. You see, I wanted to adopt an oak tree by the Mouse river, but Helga, who seldom wishes to know her age, wished to choose a cypress tree near the abyss.”
Emily raised her head, instantly alert.
“Your cypress, no doubt,” he nodded. “They say its wood never ages, so I suppose Helga hoped she’d stay young forever.” He chuckled. We went back and forth on it for the longest time. I never could convince her, she’s so very hard headed. But turns out, it’s good she is. Finally the oak tree convinced her one day when it dropped an acorn on her head and knocked her down as if she were dead. But praise the almighty forest she came back to herself and said, straight-a-way, that it must be a sign that we had to take that oak as our birth tree, so she gave up her idea about the cypress. I always thought it an exotic notion. We each wrote our names on the tree: Oderic Nicolaus Wolfhart Engelbrecht and Helga Katarina Ursula Englebrecht, and the location of our home. I journey to the tree every few years to check our age.”
“I don’t remember any writing on it,” she said, thinking it must have taken a very long time to carve such long names on a tree.
“Do you read runes?”
She shook her head.
“Well then, that’s why you didn’t see our names. Wherever you’ve come from, my girl, your education has been sorely lacking. Runes are the written language of the faerie folk, you know, gnomes, sprites, elves, the like. I think even leprechauns use them. I’m not sure about pixies and dwarves. They may not even read or write. Anyway, it’s very useful to have runes when you wish to write something down.
“Why, a hundred years after we left those runes on our birth tree, a farm gnome passing by from one of the great estates to the East, near Hertfordshire, saw them and came calling at our home to court Helga. She ended by marrying him.”
Emily smiled to think of these very small people with such long names romancing each other when they were two hundred years old.
After his story, Oderic told her he was going back to his home to pack some provisions to take with them the next morning when they would set out for the abyss. Emily was uneasy about being alone, but she huddled closer to the small fire and to Gabriel. That night, the two companions—darkness and cold—crept into the forest hand in hand. When Oderic returned much later, she was still awake, keeping vigil for him, and true to his word the basket he carried on his back was filled with small loaves of whole grain bread, berry preserves, dried mushrooms and, of course, more raspberry mead.
He said they had a long journey ahead, so they needed to be prepared, and they would set out the next morning before first light.
