"This all sounds very familiar," Miranda mused.
"There are patterns woven into our lives," Gwen said. "Perhaps the gods do take a hand in shaping events, or perhaps I unconsciously set you on a path that mirrored my own... because, like you, I survived the destruction of my family by the Dark Court and, like you, I fled into the night and found my way to a hermit who would guide the next steps of my path..."
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The Bramblewood, just outside Henford-On-Bagley, 2000
My hermit was named Lucius Tempest, an old friend of our family who lived - and lives still - in a cottage above Old New Henford. He is a recluse, living alone save for his cat, and generally avoids getting involved with either the affairs of the Council or the mortal world.
My mother had always told me that, if ever I needed a safe place to go, I should go to Lucius.
So, it was to Lucius that I fled.
He took me in and, for a time, gave me a place to rest and to heal.
As I said, I had never before known grief or loss, and sudden they seemed to be all I knew. Almost all. Even in the depths of my despair, I felt an unaccustomed weight dragging me inexorably forward. I felt the turning of the days.
The rising and setting of the sun outside my window were no longer unchanging. The days were not always golden and the nights not always perfect, but the stars still glittered and the sun still shone.
Lucius comforted me.
"I've lost everything," I told him.
"Oh, my poor, dear girl," he said. "I know your pain... but, Gwenivar, you aren't alone. You have lost so much, but not everything."
"They're gone," I wept.
"No," he replied gently. "Their memory lives in you, and so long as it does their spirits endure. Death is not the end. There are no Endings. My poor child, you have only ever known Spring and Summer... Autumn follows Summer and Winter comes behind it, but then Spring comes again and Summer returns."
It must seem strange to you that I had no experience of this truth that every mortal child knows. Almost as strange as it was for me to experience it. Yet, I did find some comfort in it.
I don't know how long I stayed with Lucius. I had not yet learned to measure the passing of days. (I think Cassie and Miranda will both tell you I still don't have the knack of it.) Still, despite Lucius's declaration that there are no Endings, my time with him had to end.
We left his cottage, by means of a magic different from the magic I was used to, and traveled to a place... a Place Between.
"Gwenivar, I have to tell you something," Lucius said. "Your grandmother foresaw the coming of the Dark Court and feared that she and Ari might not survive it. So, she made plans to keep you safe. She charged me with seeing those plans through. I am taking you to someone who will protect you."
"Taking me? I don't understand. Mother said I should go to you." I was confused and angry. "Why can't I stay with you?"
"Because I cannot protect you so well," he replied.
"You are the greatest weather witch in the world!" I insisted, because it was - and is - the truth. "Grandmother always said you could be the Sage of Wild Magic, if you only had the ambition to challenge for it."
"Yes, and your grandmother's opinions about my lack of ambition are one of the chief reasons I stopped coming 'round to dinner," Lucius smiled ruefully.
"Why can't you protect me?" I demanded.
"Gwenivar," he sighed. "I am a simple man, who lives alone with my cat on top of a mountain. It is only a matter of time before someone notices I have suddenly taken to boarding a mysterious young woman. From that, it is only a matter of time before word reaches the Dark Court that Lucius Tempest has taken in what can only be the last surviving Guardian of Glimmerbook Watch.
"They seem content, for now, to ignore you, (more fool them)," he continued, "but in you and me together they will see a threat that must be answered. I am a powerful witch, but it is a long time since I have been a warrior. My cottage is no fortress to withstand attack or siege.
"Right now, your safety depends on secrecy, not strength... and your safety is all that matters to me. So, I am taking you to a place where you will be safe, and at the same time, a place where you will learn many things that you have not been taught but that you greatly need to know."
So, Lucius led me into the hidden path within the Tree, through mists and along a secret stream until we emerged into a sunlight that was as far from the golden sunlight of my youth as I had ever been.
There he spoke the words that would forever seal these great changes to my life...
"Welcome, Gwenivar Silveroak, to Willow Creek."
The first words I said at this momentous change were less than grand.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No," he said. "No, this is Willow Creek."
"I can't stay here," I said, appalled. "This is the mortal world! It's loud and ugly and it smells! You must have made a mistake. Misunderstood grandmother's plan..."
"Come along," Lucius replied. I recall he smiled a little, amused at my horror, which did nothing to improve my mood at the time.
He took me to one of the houses just beside the Tree we had emerged from and introduced me to the mortal man who lived there, the man who was to be my foster father, Doug Brown.
"Hello Gwen," Doug said to me. "Ari... your mother... and I were very close once."
My mother, you see, made a habit of visiting the mortal world. Her little vacations, Grandmother called them. Every twenty or thirty years, she would attend University (she had a number of degrees). I fairly quickly gathered that during her last "little vacation," she had met and had a dalliance with this Doug Brown.
"She asked me to look after you, if anything happened to her," Doug continued. "I... I can't tell you how sorry I am for your loss. We can never replace your family, but I hope, given time, you'll find a home here."
So, I found myself in a new home, with new people, in a strange world so very unlike my own.
