Awaken Read Online Free Page A

displaced shock.
    What had so overcome her in that glade? It was as though someone else, a different and unknown Myrina, had taken over her body and mind. And the voice in her head…was she going mad? ’Twas a frightening, sobering thought.
    Pausing outside the woodsman’s door, she wiped her face with an edge of her cloak and tried to compose herself enough so the old man would sense nothing wrong. After knocking and being bade to enter, she pushed the door open and went in, smiling as best she could at the elderly man lying on the bed.
    “Good eve, Myrina. Have you brought my provisions from Goodwife Harbottle?”
    “Indeed I have.” Myrina placed her basket on the table and lifted the eggs out carefully before removing the package and beginning to unwrap it. “She sent a loaf fresh from the oven, butter, cheese, a side of beef and a jar of ale.”
    “Ah,” sighed the half-blind old man, “the goodwife, bless her soul, takes great care of me. I don’t know what I would do without her aid and that of you young people who bring the food. Once, not so long ago as you might think, I could hunt and catch my own food, going into the village only to sell my wood and buy whatever I needed.”
    Myrina nodded, bustling about the room, putting the food on the shelves, hardly listening as the elder rambled on about times gone by. Inside, shame and fear still roiled, making her feel almost ill.
    Turning her back to the woodsman, she stood as though looking out the window, trying to slow the still-frantic pace of her heart. The pleasure, the journey to that ultimate moment of soul-destructive release, would not be denied. She must have been ensorcelled, the spell drawing her to that place, creating her wanton behaviour, the voice in her head. Yet she didn’t believe in magic—not really. Surely it was just something parents made up to keep their children in line with fear? If you don’t behave, the faeries will be angered, the pixies pinch your toes at night.
    Perhaps Elawen was right in saying it was time Myrina found herself another lover? Surely this unseemly reaction was a result of loneliness, of being untouched by a man’s hands for all these months? But how could she have imagined, on her own, a man putting his head between her legs to kiss her quim? Not even Elawen had ever told her of such a thing. Did people actually do such things to each other?
    “Does aught ail you, Myrina?”
    Gottreb’s querulous voice brought her out of her turbulent thoughts, and Myrina pushed them aside, drawing a shuddering breath before turning to face him. “No, Master Gottreb. I was just thinking.”
    “I was beginning to wonder what you were looking at.” The old man paused to cough. “If perhaps faery folk were outside making faces at you through the glass.”
    Myrina shivered to hear him say so, so close on the heels of her own similar musings, but forced a brief laugh. “Surely you don’t believe in such things, Master Gottreb?”
    The old man shrugged. “I won’t say I do, and I won’t say I don’t. Many a strange tale I’ve heard in the past—some beyond explaining.”
    “Like what?”
    The old man narrowed his eyes as though thinking deeply. “Like the story of the red stag my father swore led him on a chase through the woods and then vanished in the blink of an eye. Or that of the prince who disappeared without a trace, leaving only his bow behind.” Gottreb nodded, as though seeing the scepticism on her face. “There is even a place in the woods I once found, where although it were winter, the grass was green and littered with flowers. The horse I was on refused to go into it and reared before galloping away. ’Twas a beautiful glade, ringed with trees, and I was of a mind to go back, for it was so pretty. But never could I find it again, although I know these woods like the back of my hand and spent many a day searching.”
    Myrina wanted to ask him more about the glade, but his words robbed her of speech.