Free The Hidden Queen by Alma Alexander Page B

that had earned its sobriquet of the House of the Wells. They had called Rima that, Rima of the Wells, but only now, here in the place where Rima had been born, did her daughter realize the name’s true meaning. In Cascin the streams were called wells, and the particular one Brynna had targeted was one of the smaller ones, clear mountain water rushing over smooth pebbles in its bed. Coming down to the edge, Brynna dipped a hand into the stream and gasped at the glacial water; beneath the surface odd-shaped stones and pebbles littered the stream bed upon a base of striated rock that formed the root of the mountain, interspersed with stretches of pale clean sand. A fragment of greenish rock caught her eye, rough-edged but carved into an intriguing shape by the water. It lay next to a larger stone, damp and slippery but at least partly out of the water and with a precarious possibility as a stepping stone in the middle of the brook. Balancing herself on this, she leaned over to retrieve the fragment, almost falling into the well despite her aunt’s explicit warning. She examined her prize with interest, still crouched and finely balanced in mid-stream on her wobbly stepping stone, and then, clutching the treasure in her hand for want of a pocket, glanced around at the glade surrounding the well.
    Two massive willow trees grew leaning into one another, directly opposite on the far bank. They were almost naked still, their grayish twigs and branches trailing disconsolately in the water as if they belonged to something that would never wake again. But even here there were signs, and Brynna realized the willows would form an almost completely self-contained grotto, a bell-like space beneath the spreading boughs, once summer put leaves onto their wintry skeletons. Intrigued, she crossed the well and pushed aside the trailing edge of the nearest willow. A few branch-ends caught at her dress but on the whole the barrier remained more visual than physical, and she was rewarded by the discovery of a quiet place, hidden by what would before too long be a screen of spreading branches. The outer edge, away from the well, was hedged by what seemed to be a sort of thorn bush, a guard against unexpected approach from the rear; and toward the stream the ground sloped steeply down to the water’s edge. It was carpeted with moss and bracken, and what looked like it might well develop into a clutch of bluebells.
    Brynna forgot about the other children she was meant to be seeking, sitting down with a sigh in this hidden place with so much potential for summer magic, letting go of her homesickness and confusion for a moment. She reluctantly abandoned the idea that the spot beneath the willows had been left unknown and unclaimed, as close to the house as it was; but, for now at least, the bracken was undisturbed, and there were no footprints in the soft earth. Not secret, perhaps, but certainly no man’s, not now. Hers, then, if she chose. In an act of claiming that was half childish and half pagan, out of time immemorial, she took the stone she had lifted from the well and planted it, sharp end down, into the soft earth on the highest point in the grotto. She worked it in until it looked properly rooted—not unlike a Standing Stone. A shiver of peculiar energy rushed through her, a feeling of having done something right, something she had yet to understand the significance of but which was nevertheless profoundly important in some way. And then, eventually, she left the tree-cave, careful to leave few traces of her passing, and resumed her search for Chella’s sons.
    They were still lurking in silence somewhere; she thought she heard a faint sound of raised childish voices once and tried to follow it, but it had soon faded. No matter; perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps it would be better to meet all these young strangers, of whose welcome she was far from certain, in an environment made safer by the presence of friendly adults. At least then