Red Gold - 1. Chapter 1 - Red Gold

The first time ever she had seen him, was when she was about six years old. She had wandered away from her friends and ventured deeper into the woods than she had been before. Quite suddenly she had come out of the trees into a strange clearing and there he was, crouching, looking at something in the grass. A boy, little older than she was. Startled he had looked up and, for a moment their eyes had locked and something…. something wordless and strange passed between them. And then he was gone. In an impossible movement he had sprung up and flipped over backwards disappearing into the trees.

She had run across the clearing as fast as she could and called over and over into the trees but he was gone and all she had left was an impression of a wild mane of hair that was too red to be called gold and too gold to be red and slanting eyes the same colour as the grass on which he had been crouching.

Feeling somehow sad she had gone to look at what he had been staring at and found a delicate tracery of bones and feathers that had once been a bird. With a shiver she realised that there were bones missing…the skull. Had the boy taken it? Why?

For some time she had been obsessed by the strange boy in the woods. She watched for him all the time, pressing deeper and deeper into the woods but finding nothing. Her dreams were filled with him and her books filled with sketches coloured in green and red gold. And then she forgot him.

Until a day when she was twelve years old. She was running from some small tragedy, instantly forgotten and found herself on the banks of a stream, deep in the woods. Throwing herself dramatically onto a large flat rock that jutted out over the water she sobbed for a time before gradually becoming aware that someone was watching her.

Raising her head she had seen him, older but unmistakable, his wild hair tied at the nape of his neck, a bow slung over his shoulder. He had one hand on the trunk of a tree, his head tilted to one side, regarding her gravely with his moss green eyes, slanting like a cat’s. Instantly she leaped to her feet.

“Who are you?”

The sound of her voice had seemed to startle him and he was gone again, whirling and seeming to simply disappear amongst the branches and undergrowth.

“Wait! Please… who are you?”

After that, when she was wandering in the deep woods she often thought she caught a flash of red gold but she could never run fast enough to catch it.

And then it was the day of her sixteenth birthday. She had come back from her own birthday party feeling somehow empty and lost. Wandering in the woods under the moonlight she was more alone than she had ever been. She had thought that she should not wander too deeply into the woods but she was longing for solitude and so was drawn deeper and deeper until she found herself at the same stream she remembered from years before.

Feeling restless she wandered along the bank, upstream and began to hear the sound of rushing water. When the waterfall burst into view it took her breath away. The cliff face was not very tall but the mountain stream that flowed over its lip cascaded downwards in moon gilded froth to a small, secluded pool, bathed in moonlight and overhung with drooping branches of willow.

So enchanted was she by the scene and the atmosphere that she did not, at first, realise that she was not alone. Drawn by the beauty of the pool she crouched at its lip, the hem of her long skirt trailing in the water. Bending forwards her long pale blonde hair touched the silvered liquid and her pale fingers scooped the shining droplets letting them fall back in a diamond shower.

The sound of splashing disturbed her and she looked up. As she watched his head broke the water and he rose, like a sea god from the pool. Shaking his head the wild strands of red gold hair whipped about him sending the glittering diamonds flying around him encasing him in a dazzling cloud of dancing droplets.

Awestruck she rose and stood, her feet and the hem of her skirt in the water, staring. He was unaware of her and, standing waist deep in the water he pushed the heavy ropes of hair back from his face and raised his arms to the moon, bathing in its light, lifting his face for its blessing. Afraid to breathe she watched as he stretched and arched his back, oblivious.

And then, as though he became aware of her eyes he turned to her and froze. His glance flickered to the side of the pool, like a cornered animal checking for an escape route. Following his gaze she saw the pile of clothes and moved towards them with no conscious thought other than curiosity.

Casually tossed onto the top of the pile of clothing was an old fashioned longbow strung with gut, a quiver of arrows and a long, leaf bladed hunting knife. Picking up the knife she ran her finger over the blade, startled when bright drops of blood beaded on the moon gilded surface. Disgusted she threw the knife away from her and sucked at her finger.

Laughing the boy waded towards her through the shallowing pool, shedding water, heedless of his nakedness.

When he was less than two steps away he stopped and looked at her, his head to one side, a smile on his lips. His wild hair hung to below his waist; twisting in snake like tendrils across his chest. The catlike eyes regarded her coolly and with more poise than she had ever seen before in a male of her own age. He was taller than her by at least a head and whip lean, his skin, browned by an outdoor life, was nevertheless fine and pale beneath the tan.

‘He is not beautiful’ she thought. ‘He is too strange looking to be beautiful, but he is fascinating and I would love to touch him.’

“Who are you?”

The boy frowned, then smiled again, a quick bright smile and shook his head. “No one.” His voice was soft, melodious and strangely accented. For some reason it sent shivers down her spine.

“Well, what’s your name then?”

“My name?” His voice, like his eyes, was distant and dreamy. “That is not a simple question.”

“Yes it is. I just want to know your name, that’s all, just your name.”

“Just my name. Just? I have had many names.”

“Then pick one. I just want to know what to call you.”

“Why would you call me?”

“No, I didn’t mean that I would actually call you. How would I refer to you?”

For a moment he looked puzzled and then shook his head. “If you called I wouldn’t come.”

“Why not?”

“It is not the time.”

“What do you mean? Tell me your name.”

Smiling infuriatingly the boy stooped and collected his clothes. Petulantly she put her foot on the hunting knife and he paused, looking up at her with his hand on the knife. He didn’t say anything, he merely looked at her and in the end she took away her foot.

“Why won’t you tell me your name? I just want to know your name?”

“Just? Why would I give you that which would let you take power from me? The one thing that no one can take from me? What have you done to earn it?”

“Don’t you think you are being a little childish?”

Standing upright he took two quick steps forwards and kissed her gently and briefly on the lips the he smiled at her and said “Goodbye Gabrielle.” and he was gone. He had spun and leaped so fast she could not even have said with certainty in which direction he had gone.

“Wait! Stop! Wait! You still….” realising the futility of any further calling she sighed and completed her sentence in a whisper to herself, “…haven’t told me your name.”

When she got home, the very same night she took out her sketch book and her best paints and papers and she did not lay her head on her pillow until the dawn had already lightened the sky and two green eyes stared out at her from the paper taped to the easel; backed by the waterfall and the glittering surface of the pool.

On waking in the late morning she sat for a long time staring at the painting until her mother came looking for her.

“Where did you disappear to last night? You were very quiet. Didn’t you enjoy yourself?”

“Yes, I did but……. “ she sighed. “I don’t know… all that giggling and posing. It’s not really me Mam. I just don’t feel that I have anything in common with them, any of them.”

“You have the fact that you are sixteen. There is a lot of posturing goes on when you are sixteen, it’s all part of growing up. Except you seem to have skipped past it. Don’t worry, the rest will catch up eventually.” Catching sight of the painting she exclaimed in delight. “Oh Gabrielle, it’s beautiful. Did you do that last night?”

“Yes, when I came back, I don’t know why, I just had to.”

“I thought I’d seen the last of him. Seems like’s he’s grown with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“The boy in the painting. You used to draw and paint him all the time….. or at least someone very like him….with all that strange hair.”

“I did?”

“You did…. all the time. I got quite fond of him in the end. What is he? A faery? Or the spirit of the pool or something?”

“No. Just a boy.”

“Well then he’s a very strange looking boy. There is something….. wild about him, something…fey. He is beautiful though… in that setting with the tumbling water and the moonlight. I think he would be more strange than beautiful in our world, frightening even.”

“Frightening? He isn’t frightening Mam, not when you see him…. I mean when you see him the way I do.”

Her mother laughed. “Well, whatever, this is your best work so far Gabrielle. Will you be submitting it for the exhibition?”

She thought about it then shook her head. “No. This one is just for me.”

It wasn’t long afterwards that the singing began. It was always when she was almost asleep, in that state between waking and sleeping when you never know if anything you experience is quite real. The song changed, the voice was always the same. Sweet and melodious in its soft lilting cadence, it lulled her to sleep every night. And then the dreams came.

Gabrielle only had the dreams on the nights when she heard the song. Sometimes she would be too tired and fall asleep before the singer had a chance to bewitch her, sometimes he didn’t come, but always when she drifted off in the arms of the otherworldly melody the dream was the same.

There was a castle on a hill. It was bleak but beautiful. The cliffs, rising from the ravine through which she rode towards the castle, sparkled with quartz and were tinged purple by the setting sun. The castle blazed like a jewel outlined against the skyline. Towers like fingers pointed upwards; the windows, lit from within by torches, rings which adorned them.

Beyond the castle, on another, higher hill, black and brooding was the shell of another, broken castle. It’s splintered towers an obscene gesture wrapping the night around it and reflecting it back, as the other kept it at bay.

Shivering she tore her eyes away from the black castle and set them on the glittering windows which beckoned to her like an old friend. Somewhere within, she knew, she would find family and friends. Her people, who would welcome her home from a long journey and, somewhere, looking out perhaps to watch her approach, somewhere there was a heart that beat only for her, arms which ached with longing to hold her, lips which smiled in welcome and existed only until they could meld to hers and come alive. Somewhere.

Aching with longing she would urge her horse faster and faster towards the castle but always the horse missed the path and took her onwards to another, rockier path which wound to the black jagged peak where something else waited, someone with ice in his heart and a jagged blade that yearned for her flesh.

Frantically she would pull back on the reins yanking the horse’s head back so that it turned showing her the red glow of its eyes and she would cry out, trying to throw herself from its back. It would not allow it and, instead it broke into a gallop, flying over the loose stones and clinging to the narrow path like a mountain goat. She was terrified and she clung to the flying mane bending low, flat across the straining neck and did not look up until they came to a stop that was so sudden she flew forward, landing in an unceremonious pile on the ground.

Dazed she climbed to her knees, gasping with the pain that gripped her belly. Wrapping her arms around herself she realised that she was heavily pregnant, and bleeding. A dark shape loomed over her and hands took hold of her lifting her and carrying her into the shell of the castle. Here candles burned around an altar draped with red velvet. The hands which were carrying her laid her on the altar and the dark shadow turned to her, red light reflecting from his flat black eyes and on the zig zag blade he held in his upraised hand.

The knife fell and she screamed and screamed. It was the screaming that woke her, although, somehow no one else ever seemed to hear it.