Shadowfell by Juliet Marillier

You’ve heard what they do, I suppose. The mind-scrapers.’ Her voice had fallen to a murmur.
    I had not only heard it, I had seen it with my own eyes, trapped as I had been in the wall of Grandmother’s cottage and forbidden so much as to squeak. I nodded, wondering that Mara was prepared to speak so openly to me.
    ‘They brought him back next day and he was like this. No warrior, nor even the man he had been, but . . .’ Mara faltered to a halt, watching Garret as he pushed the little cart along the hearth. ‘It’s hard for people to understand,’ she went on. ‘He barely sleeps at night. I sing to him, tell him tales, hold him and soothe him. If I’m lucky, he’ll drop off for a bit before sunup. As for the harp, I can’t get it down; he’d only break it.’
    ‘Who is Brendan?’ I asked, knowing it was none of my business, but wanting, suddenly, the reassurance that she was not quite alone.
    ‘Our son. I sent him away, to my mother’s village. Garret misses him. But it’s too dangerous. He doesn’t know his own strength, you see. What they did to him, it was meant to make him obedient. But sometimes their magic goes awry, steals away some part of a man that there’s no getting back.’ She tipped her chopped ingredients into a small pot and added water from the kettle, using her free hand to bat her husband’s curious fingers out of harm’s way. ‘No, Garret, hot!’ She stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon. ‘Brendan’s only three years old. He’s best off out of this. We don’t see him much.’
    ‘See Beha!’ Garret’s voice was insistent, woeful. ‘Beha!’ He drummed his feet on the floor.
    There was a basket of straw at one side of the hearth, perhaps bedding for an animal. I plucked out a handful and began to weave the strands together, pretending I did not see the pair of bright eyes within the basket, eyes that most certainly did not belong to a cat or rabbit or motherless lamb. ‘Look, Garret,’ I said.
    He was instantly fascinated, edging over to sit right beside me, his gaze intent on my busy fingers. I twisted and knotted and bent the straw to make a little figure with legs, arms and a head, then put it in his hand. ‘Garret,’ I said. ‘Man.’ As I made a second, slightly smaller manikin, with a head of long wispy hair, Mara sat down at the table, watching in silence. I wondered how long it was since anyone had given their time to Garret, how long since she had been able to rest for a few moments knowing he was safe and happy. I thought of that last season with Grandmother, when Father was out labouring on farms to earn our keep, leaving me to tend to her. The exhaustion of the road was nothing beside the bone-shattering weariness of those endless days and nights of constant watchfulness. She had seldom slept more than an hour at a time. She had lost control of her bodily functions. She would rock to and fro, weeping, making me wonder if, deep down, there still burned a tiny spark of the brave, wise woman she had once been.
    ‘Mara,’ I said, handing Garret the second little figure. ‘Woman.’
    Garret smiled. He made the two tiny people do a little dance along his leg, and a whistle emerged from him, an attempt at a tune. ‘Beha,’ he urged. ‘May Beha!’
    As I fashioned Brendan, a very small straw person, I imagined Mara and Garret’s son in fifteen years’ time, a young man finding his path in the world. I thought of him in twenty-five years’ time, with a wife and children, and parents he hardly knew. ‘Brendan,’ I said, putting the finished manikin in Garret’s hand. ‘Your son. Your boy.’
    From the basket of straw the strange eyes watched, unblinking. Perhaps this sad pair was not entirely alone. There was an infinitesimal rustling sound.
    ‘Mice,’ said Mara a little too quickly. ‘They’re everywhere this autumn. Will you take some honey brew? It’ll warm you for the road.’
    I rose to my feet. For now, Garret was happy with his little