Born in the Seventh Year by Susan Urbanek Linville Myrica grasped the willow rungs in the ancient birthing stool. "Please let this baby live," she cried. Another contraction ripped through her body. Sweat burned her cracked lips. "It's time," said Rubra. The darkened room filled with the strong odor of rosemary and lemon balm, as the herbs were dropped into a boiling pot. "You must push now. Push the child out." Myrica pressed her spine into the well-worn wood and dug her toes into the sod floor. Rubra's wrinkled hand moved along her swollen body, pressing against the muscles to relieve the pain. Bone pushed against bone and flesh against flesh. Myrica took a deep breath and bit her lower lip. With a whimper, the child took its first breath. "She's alive," Myrica laughed. "Thank the Earth Mother." "One more push." Rubra brushed her graying red hair away from her face. "This is not finished yet." Myrica hardly heard the words. The child lived! Her first two daughters had been born blue and still. They had been beautiful fairy creatures, with creamy dark skin and catgreen eyes, but had had only one nostril and no lungs with which to breathe. "Let me hold her," Myrica said. Finally, she had a living child, an infant to hold next to her breast and nurture. Rubra moved the infant to the hearth, where she cleaned it with herbal oils. She pulled a piece of old linen from the table and wrapped the child. "I have a new cloth for my baby," said Myrica. "He will not need it." "No!" "I'm sorry." Rubra pushed open the wooden window, signaling the arrival of a male child. Cool damp air crept into the room. Myrica shivered. She could hear the Wikkens, the witch fairies, rattling squirrel bones to keep pixies away. "Please, let me hold him." Myrica wiped the tears from her face. "He's my only living child." "It's better you don't touch him. The parting will be less painful." "Less painful?" Myrica shouted. "How would you know! You've never had a child to lose!" Rubra turned her back to Myrica and held the child closely. Before Myrica could speak again, the door latch lifted and three Wikkens entered the birthing hut. Dressed in dark robes, they flowed into the room, smelling of holly and sweet incense. Each wore a long necklace of thorn and nightshade. Rubra handed the infant to the Wikken Elder, a short female with long white hair. "He's my child!" Myrica struggled to stand, but fell in a pool of blood and afterbirth. "Go away, before I summon the wood magic against you!" "He is lost," said the Elder. "Another will be found for you. A human child will fill the void now in your heart." "No!" Myrica tried to crawl toward them, but Rubra grabbed her and quickly wrapped a blanket around her shivering body. "Let them go," Rubra whispered, guiding Myrica to the sleeping mat. "This is your brother's child too. He is part of your blood." "It's the law, Myrica." "I don't care about the law." "You should!" Rubra's eyes were large and dark, like a wild cat's ready to kill. Myrica's cheeks flushed. She looked away from Rubra. The Elder held Myrica's baby in the firelight. "Look at the bones protruding from beneath the skin. This male is weak and sickly." She held up his foot. "He is webbed between the toes. It's a sign of bad blood." "I will make potions to strengthen him. I will find a human to nurse him." "You know the law," said the Elder. "This is the Seventh Year. All males born in the Seventh Year must be given over as changelings. We need the strength of human blood. You must know, after the death of your other children, that the blood runs bad." "You can make an exception to the law. My grandfather was Tanoak, high wizard of the wood. His blood is in this child." "There are no exceptions." The elder took the child and handed him to the other Wikkens. They wrapped him tightly in dark linen and protected him with a necklace of silver fairy bells. Myrica tried to stand again. She wanted to grab her son and run out into the darkness, to hide in the protective arms of the forest. Rubra squeezed her arm. "Be still. Don't question the Wikken." One of the witches pulled a glass vial of elderberry extract from her cloak pocket. Myrica knew the red liquid was to be part of the magic used to disguise her son. His new human parents would never know he was a fairy child. The Wikken poured two drops into her palm and drew a pentagram with it on the child's forehead. "Ashem balic sabin," she chanted in an ancient fairy tongue. "Cilim balic Sabin." "Stop! You'll not change my son with the Fay-erie. By the gods of the forest realm, I name this child Cedrus, Son of Myrica and Tallowman." "Myrica, don't do this," Rubra pleaded. "Let him go." "In the name of Ostrya, I bring him in as a forest brother." The Eider turned and lifted her wooden staff as if to strike. Anger flashed in her amber eyes. "Do you curse our race?" "In the name of Tamarack, I protect Cedrus within the Seeiie Court," Myrica shouted her petition desperately. By naming the child, she proclaimed him to be a fairy and under the gods' protection. The Fay-erie would not work on him now. "You are a fool." The Elder hissed like a snake. "A fool who thinks nothing of her child and the Fay. We must still take him in accordance with the law." "What?" "You have doomed your child. He must be given to the humans without benefit of the Fay-erie. He will surely be left to die by them." The Elder spat on the herb-covered floor. "May the curse of bones be upon you for challenging Fay law. No more children are to be born to you." "No!" Myrica pleaded. The Elder pointed the bottom of her wooden staff toward Myrica, then pounded it on the floor three times. She broke the staff across her knee and threw it into the north corner of the room. "The seed of the Earth Mother shall shrivel and die within you." Myrica silently watched the Wikkens take her son from the hut. Squirrel bones rattled in the darkness and the smell of hemlock burned her nose. Myrica wrapped the sleeping changeling in a clean linen cloth and laid him in a moss-lined basket. He sucked on his chubby fist. "He's a perfect baby." Rubra looked up from her needlework. "He's fat and healthy. He has the long fingers of a smith. He'll make a fine craftsman, even if he is human." Myrica ignored the remarks. At the hearth, she bundled a stack of oatmeal cakes and packed them into a woven sack with dried mushrooms and deer-milk cheese. "He will be a welcomed member of the clan," Rubra continued. "Tallowman will be glad to have a healthy child he can apprentice as a goldsmith." "Tallowman will never see this child." Myrica pulled on her worn suede boots and tied them at the ankle. "I presented empty baskets to your clan broch when my first two children died. I'm not presenting a human this time." Myrica tied her traveling sack about her waist, along with a water gourd and extra linen for the baby. Around her neck she wore a gold chain of fairy bells and god fingers that had been passed to her from her mother. She made a sling for the infant and tied him next to her breast. "The broch will gladly accept a human. They understand the reason for the laws and the consequences of not following them," Rubra pleaded. "Laws. Is that all that concerns you? The Wikkens steal my son, and all you talk about are laws. You don't understand the love of a mother." "Foolish child! You talk about understanding, but what do you know?" Rubra dropped her sewing. "I lost my only child in a pool of blood in the winter snow. A small faceless beast, with crippled arms and a hollow heart. I cried for days. I cried for my baby, and I cried for myself. And I accepted my loss. I never tried to have another child, for I knew what could come of bad blood." Myrica was silent for a moment. Then she threw on her cloak and fastened it. "I'm sorry your child died, Rubra," she said finally. "But not all children born the Seventh Year are born with bad blood. My son was not deformed. I want him back." "Your son was taken for a reason. Please, Myrica, think about the Fay children of the future." Myrica opened the door. The sun was just starting to lighten the eastern sky beyond the dark umbrella of the forest. "I'm going." "Stop thinking only of yourself!" Myrica walked out into the crisp morning. Myrica knelt amid the tall lilies and pressed the dry leaves against her pointed ear. "From the darkness give me sound, of voices past on this trodden ground," she chanted in the ancient fairy tongue. She heard the faint whispering of a pixie song from a previous night. She heard the obnoxious snorts of a forest troll. The haunting howl of the black dog echoed in the dark. There were sounds of cool nights and windy days, but no fairies had passed this way. Myrica shivered and pulled at her cloak. She studied the ground and sniffed. "The trail must be here!" Myrica rubbed her tired eyes. "This is the quickest way to the openlands. What magic did the Wikkens use? There's no sound, no track, no scent." An ashen moon rose in the eastern sky. Myrica looked in the direction the new elm saplings grew; she chewed a sassafras twig and combed hemlock needles through her hair. There was still no signs of the Wikkens' passing. The human child cried, as he had done every hour. Myrica slumped on a mossy patch near a rotting oak and pulled the wet baby from the sling. The bells of protection around his neck jingled. "Shut up, you pig beast." She changed the baby and offered him her aching breast. "I should leave you here for the dogs." Myrica leaned back, careful not to hold the baby too close. She studied the moon and stars. Ursa, the bear, pointed to the north, and Draco protected the skies. As she watched, Aurora threw her blood-red curtain across the darkness. Myrica stood up. Still looking at the heavens, she turned in a circle. "That's it! How stupid could I have been? The sky, that's where the signs are. The Wikkens didn't travel on the ground, they flew along the treetops on bundles of ragwort stems." Myrica tied the baby sling to the lower branches of a white pine and climbed to its top. She brushed the soft needles against her cheek. The odor of nightshade filled the air. Myrica broke a needle from the tree and rubbed it on her forehead, then turned until she could see the moonlight bending in the air, as if being sucked into a tunnel. This was the fairy passing she was looking for. The path took them northeast toward a small human village. They crossed cultivated land, ready for spring planting. Cold iron had cut the brown earth. The smell of the metal made her teeth ache. When they reached the town, Myrica slipped along the streets, hiding in the shadows. She was careful not to touch the iron gates and crosses that were common on human dwellings, but her head throbbed from their nearness. Myrica sniffed, hoping to catch the scent of her child, but the sour stench of humans overwhelmed everything. Even the herb-tinged smell of the Wikken was lost. She rounded a corner and was overcome by the scent of cooked beef. "Flesh-eaters!" She vomited against the side of a building. The baby stretched against his wrap and cried softly. "Hush." Myrica rocked the baby and fumbled in her pocket. After a few minutes, she retrieved a forked stick carved with runic inscriptions. She held the stick in both hands and closed her eyes. "Live oak of the forest, show me my child." The stick pulled against Myrica's hand, leading her down a dark alley. She walked quietly past a sleeping man with a dog, and crossed the deserted town square. A narrow road lined with small houses stretched northward. Myrica followed it until she reached a stone house with a lamp burning in the window. "This is it." She removed her traveling pack and put the baby on the ground. Pressing a clove of garlic against the side of her mouth, Myrica crept to the door of the stone house. The pungent herb burned her cheek. She touched the cold wall with her left hand. A female was whispering inside. She was praying. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee ..." The human baby whimpered from his cold resting place. His cry roared in Myrica's sensitized ears. "Quiet!" she snapped. "I need to hear if Cedrus is inside." "Lord, forgive me," said the female, "I didn't know what to do." The Mam cried out again. Myrica turned from the building and picked up the child. "If you don't shut up, I'm ..." Myrica turned. The crying was coming from the darkness, on the hillock behind the house. "Cedrus?" Myrica ran, the baby still in her arms. She crashed through the rose garden in back of the house. The thorns ripped at her legs and arms, stinging like pixie arrows. "Cedrus!" Myrica struggled against the blackberry canes, not taking the time to walk "with the briars" the way her grandfather had taught her. A dog barked in the distance. Myrica sucked a scratch on the back of her hand and pushed through the new growth until she reached a rocky ledge at the crest of the hill. "Cedrus!" she cried, gasping for air. She stumbled around on the boulders, searching the crevices for a sign of her child. The only thing she found was fresh rat dung. She cried out to the gods for help. The moon rose above the trees and cast its light against the hillside. "My son." Myrica spotted a small basket tucked into a green thicket. An embroidered blanket covered the still form beneath. "What have they done to you?" Salty tears burned her eyes. She laid the human child on the grass. Gently she picked up and caressed her withered baby, running her fingers through his soft brown hair. His small hands were blue and cold. "How could they leave you here like this?" Cedrus opened his mouth, but there was no cry. She pushed her breast against his dried lips. He would not eat. She smelled death; that same musky sweet odor she'd smelled in her grandmother's hut, just before she had died. "Please eat, Cedrus." A tear dripped from her cheek to his. Cedrus closed his dark-brown eyes. "No! Don't take him from me now! No! Wake up!" She tried to blow life back into his lungs. "You're the grandson of Tanoak, wizard of the wood." She grabbed some sassafras leaves and rubbed them on his forehead, then held him up toward the east. A cold wind blew. Myrica looked at the small limp form in her arms. She fell to her knees, howling a death scream in the language of the wolf. The human baby cried again. "You shut up! You're never going home again. I'll leave you here for the wild dogs and the rats, the way they left Cedrus. A curse. I will put a curse on you and your house." Myrica wrapped her dead son next to her breast and climbed down the hillside. She broke a branch from a hemlock and laid it at the back door of the stone house. "They will pay for this." She cleared the ground and cut a pentagram in the soil with a forked oak stick. "Gods of the forest and sky. Gods of the water and earth. I, Myrica, daughter of..." The cries of the human baby echoed in the distance. "I, Myrica, daughter of Fay and all that is of the forest, call you." "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee," the female prayed inside. "Bring my revenge against this house. Bring death to ..." "Our father who art in heaven," the woman prayed. Myrica looked down. She touched her fingers to her dead son's head-What was she doing? Killing another child in revenge? Cursing a mother who lost a child?" "They left you to die," she whispered. "Those flesh-eating beasts!" The female inside was crying. "Bring my revenge..." Suddenly Myrica stopped. Was Rubra right? Was she being selfish? Refusing to think of her son's welfare when she kept the Fay-erie from him, had she caused her own son's death? She brushed the pentagram from the dirt and looked up at the wooden door of the house. Tears blurred her vision as she realized what she must do. Myrica carefully wrapped her scarf over her ears and hair to disguise her appearance. She knocked lightly on the door. "Go away. I want no beggars here in the middle of the night." "Please," Myrica whispered. "Go away, or I'll call my husband from his sleep." "Your baby is in the basket." Myrica's voice caught. She paused. The woman opened the door. She stared, wide-eyed and unspeaking, a white handkerchief twisted between her fingers. "Your baby lives!" The words sprang from Myrica like a curse, rasping her throat raw. Tears fell thickly, but could take none of her rage with them. How could these humans leave Cedrus on the hillside to die? Beasts! Myrica wanted to scream. Killer of helpless babies! The words would not come; her throat was closed as tightly as her fist. Opening her cloak, Myrica exposed the still form of Cedrus. She knew she had cursed her own child in the name of mother's love. His death was not entirely the human's choice. She had kept the Fay-erie from him. The female gasped and made the sign of the cross against evil. Myrica stopped the door as the woman tried to slam it in her face. She forced the woman to meet her eyes. "They took my son from me, just as they took your son from you." She grabbed the woman's sleeping gown. "You let my baby die, but the death of your son will not change the mistakes we have both made." "I'm ... sorry," the woman stuttered. The human baby cried again. Myrica backed away into the darkness. She tarried at the edge of the alleyway only long enough to watch the female retrieve her child, before making her way back to the forest. *********************************************************** About Susan Urbanek Linville and "Born in the Seventh Year" This story could easily have been a cliche; instead, it features one of the few original insights into changelings that I've ever read. No story I've received in the years since has equaled this for insight into a theme that has been much overused and could so easily have been just another cliche: overdone, overused, or just soppily sentimental. It took second place in the Cauldron vote, so obviously my readers liked it too. It's also the only changeling story I've printed in ten years of doing anthologies. Susan Linville is currently working on a Ph.D. in biology, specializing in animal behavior in birds. Between studying and working as a reaching assistant, she doesn't have much time to write at the moment, but she plans to do more of it once she finishes her degree.