Rebirth: Lady of the River

Chapter One: Valeria

“C’mon, out ye go,” a strongly accented voice said, hoisting me up by the back of my dress like a kitten being held up by their scruff. “Rather good luck I happened on ye.”

I shivered, chilled to the bone as I stared up at the burly man that had brought me up onto his unimpressive fishing skiff. The strangest thing was not his accent (which I thought could be Scottish), but the water from which I had been pulled. I had fallen. I recalled that much. But I had fallen into the Farrow River, which was polluted and disgusting. On the boat, I was afloat in a much wider and enormous body of water. Nor did the top swirl around with murk and dye.

“Here ye go lass,” the man took out a blanket from inside a storage chest beneath the bench. “I’ll take ye into town. My name is Delwyn. How’d ye get yerself in the middle of the Rill?”

“The Rill?” I repeated, staring at the flowing river, contemplating how I could have surfaced in a river I’d never heard of. Did the Farrow end up in the Rill? “I don’t know.”

Delwyn c****d a slightly concerned look at me. “A young lass such as yerself ought to be careful… The Rill is rarely forgiving. Mayhaps yer boat met an ill fate and you survived on that piece of driftwood?”

“I fell off a bridge,” I said, recounting the horses that had sped by too close to the railing, which had sent me toppling over into the Farrow. 

“Bridge?” Delwyn echoed in confusion. “There’s no bridge for miles. Rill is too wide for a bridge. No matter, no matter, your mind is likely a bit scrambled from the cold. Where ye from?”

“Greenwich.”

Delwyn gave me another puzzled look, but didn’t question me further. I think it was because he thought I was crazy or that my fall had really taken my wits. I wasn’t entirely certain, but my confusion only mounted further as we approached a small fishing village. Smoke piped up from chimneys in the cool afternoon. The streets were dirt and not a single tug-boat or steam powered machine was in sight. While electricity was a commodity that most of the States had yet to see, I was certain that all the nearby towns had electricity. 

“Mr. Delwyn?” I inquired as he began tethering us to a dock. “Can you tell me what year it is?”

“Year?” Delwyn cinched the ropes tighter. “Well, it’s 284 P.T.”

P. T.? What on earth is P.T.? I didn’t ask him. I already seemed foolish enough. Just the year was wrong. When I’d toppled into the river it had been 1908. And the inconsistencies didn’t seem to end as I was helped onto the dock, holding Delwyn’s rough hand. People were dressed in very old attire, perhaps medieval if I had to place it. I’d seen it in books before in my history classes during school… Before I’d left to get a job and help assist my mother in her downward spiral.

“Come right this way. We have a wise-woman in town who can see to ye.”

While Delwyn was resigned to pretending nothing was out of the ordinary, I noticed that people were staring at me. I doubted that people were found floating in the Rill that often, but they bowed their heads between one another, speaking in fervent whispers. 

On the outskirts of the small village, there was a single house with a thatched roof overgrown with grass. The windows were dark, dusty drapes covering the glass to prevent anyone from looking inside. Hanging on the door was a bundle of dried lavender. 

“Maggie! Maggie I know yer in there,” Delwyn pounded on the door.

“Stop your hollering!” a voice snapped from behind the door. It creaked open and a stout, hunched over woman glared up at Delwyn. “What do you want?”

“I found this here young lass floating in the Rill. She doesn’t seem to remember much. Cold water took most of her wits.”

I frowned at his words, standing right beside him as he called me stupid.

Maggie stared up at me, her eyes brightening for a moment, but the expression fled and she gave Delwyn a petulant look. “What’s her name then? Or did you not think to ask her?”

Delwyn’s face grew red in embarrassment.

“It’s Valeria,” I told them, wondering if they’d think my name was odd.

“Like the plant?” Maggie asked, but did not give me the chance to answer. “I’ll see to her. Go off then, poor thing is still half drowned.”

“Thank you, Maggie.”

The old woman huffed at him and Delwyn gave me a long look. 

“Maggie will take care of ye. I’ll talk to some of the others who traverse the Rill to see if there’s been a shipwreck recently,” he promised.

I was beginning to doubt there would be any inkling in the Rill as to why I was here. Still, I gave Delwyn an uncertain smile and followed Maggie inside her cottage. The scent of herbs smacked me full force in the face, dried bundles hanging upside down from the rafters. A fire roared in the hearth and on the table were an odd arrangement of vials, potions, and other materials. 

Maggie remained in the window, peering through the curtains, before turning around to gaze at me intently with her hooded eyes. “I knew it.”

“What?” I croaked, suddenly wondering what she knew.

“I knew you’d be here one day. I predicted it,” she waddled over to a cabinet and pulled the drawer open. Inside, she retrieved a scroll. “With hair like fire but the taste of her name like moist wood, the Lady will sew the fibers of a broken kingdom together with her magic. From a watery grave to a resplendent gait, upon her lips the trees lean.”

Maggie sat down and admired the scroll, which I assumed she must have written. “That’s not all of it, but it’s the part about you.”

“Hair like fire?”

“You’ve got red hair.”

“No, I don’t. My hair is brown.”

Maggie’s lips twisted up wryly. “It might have been once, but not now.” She picked up a small piece of polished glass. “Here.”

Offering it to me, I was terrified to take it, but did so anyways. Staring back through the mirror was not the face I remembered. Instead, it was lovelier than I could remember. The perfect balance, a strong jawline, supple lips, clear blue eyes framed by long lashes, and slightly curly copper red hair. I had never been so lovely. No, I was supposed to have a face that only a mother could love (and even mine hadn’t when she became an alcoholic). The face staring back at me startled me so much that I dropped the glass and it shattered on the floor in front of me. Rather than be upset, Maggie just laughed.

“I know, it’s a bit jarring. Tell me, what year was it when you fell through?”

“19… 1908.”

“Interesting. Not that it matters much,” she waved her hand and the mirror I had shattered, lifted off the floor and rearranged itself. The mirror sat back on the table, perfect, and unblemished.

I screamed.

“Oh shut up. You’re going to have to learn quickly or risk being killed. What skills do you have?”

I quivered, shying away from Maggie. “I-I can sew. I know how to embroider…”

“Education? Were women even allowed to go to school in 1908?”

“I can read and write. My family…” I trailed off, thinking of what it had been like when father was alive. Things had been much better. We had lived in a house and I used to read a lot of books. “Used to be well off, but that changed when I turned 13. So… 9 years prior? Why does that matter? Where am I?”

Maggie sighed at me, rolling her eyes pedantically. “Where do you think you are?” she waited a moment. “You say you can read. How about Lewis Caroll?”

“Alice in Wonderland?”

“I wouldn’t call this place something as fantastic as a Wonderland, but as you just witnessed, the reality around us can be manipulated. Magic. You have it too, everyone who topples down their own rabbit hole does,” she glanced toward the door, her pales eyes sharpening. “And it seems we’re destined not to have much time together.”

“I’m sorry?”

A knock resounded on the door, loud and persistent. “I was hoping I’d get a little more time with you, but it seems that Fate has decided to be a bigot-” she stood up and hobbled over to the door. “I will see you again, but perhaps just not as soon as you’d hope.” Maggie opened the door to reveal a pair of men that did not match the villager’s modest attire. Instead, they were adorned in fine armor and leather, intricate details etched into the steel. “How may I help you two handsome lads?” she gave them a mostly toothless grin.

“We have been informed that a young woman was discovered in the Rill-” one man began, gazing past Maggie, looking at me. “With hair like fire…” he drawled.

“King’s Men,” Maggie deduced. “You’re here for the prophecy. You intend on taking the girl?”

“To the capitol,” they confirmed.

“Very well. Valeria, off you go, you’ve got better things to do than hide here in this modest fishing village,” Maggie told me, stepping aside. I was still confused, but decided it was better to go willingly with the men that had swords strapped to their belts. But as I passed her, I noticed a slightly disappointed look, almost as if she was worried about what was going to happen.

“Show me your hands,” one of the men requested, a middle aged warrior in a full regal of armor.

I bared them, uncertain as to why it was important to show them. He removed something from his cloak and clapped them on my wrists. Immediately, pained lanced into my arms, webbing up from where golden bracelets trapped my hands. It felt like fire in my veins, as if they had poured molten lava into my soul. 

The air whooshed out of me, a silent cry passing through my mouth as I looked down at my quaking hands. What was this contraption? Why did it hurt so much? I turned back to Maggie, who had vanished, her hut utterly empty save for the fire roaring in the hearth. The herbs were gone. The trinkets were gone. All trace of her was gone.

“Come, witch. It’s time to meet your maker.”