The Hearth
It was entirely unexpected, really, the tiny cabin. I would call it a hut, but such a name evokes a certain state of dilapidation, of…
Author: Emily Learman
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It was entirely unexpected, really, the tiny cabin. I would call it a hut, but such a name evokes a certain state of dilapidation, of…
It was entirely unexpected, really, the tiny cabin. I would call it a hut, but such a name evokes a certain state of dilapidation, of crooked shingles and moss-coated stones. The small house that I came upon so suddenly deep in the quiet, dark woods was in no state of disrepair. No, it was perfect, in fact. Like a storybook. Straight walls of round, white stone, a roof of golden thatch, a garden of green grass, and a pathway of smooth, dark stepping stones. It loomed up in front of me seemingly all of a sudden, a quaint house amongst the tall pines, a breath of smoke escaping from its small chimney. I suppose I’d had my gaze fixed too long on the path before me, on my dusty hiking boots upon the stony ground. I was mulling things over in the calm of the woods with barely a thought spared for the age-old trees on either side, for their mossy trunks and whispering leaves. And then right there, merely a few paces from the trail, sat that lonely, charming cabin. I didn’t know how long I’d been wandering in the forest above the fields, but I knew that their golden slopes were far removed. It seemed as if I’d walked further than I knew. My legs felt oddly sore and tired. The light above the tree’s canopy waned.
My booted feet seemed to decide my direction of their own accord for, unknowingly, I found myself upon those smooth stones sunk deep into the emerald grass. The dense woods were now too chill for my old sweater. The door to the place looked heavy and ancient, of stolid wood darkened with age, but smooth against my knuckles as I knocked upon it. Once. Twice. I listened to the rustle of wind in the trees as I waited for the door to be answered. Their reddish leaves danced so prettily in the autumn evening breeze.
The old door creaked on its metal hinges as it was swung open from within. A woman stood before me, her light eyes bright and sharp, her long hair a dark river across her slim shoulders, and her handsome face lined with middle age. The woman’s full mouth twisted into a brief smile. Of surprise, of welcome. Without a word she pulled the door further open and beckoned me inside. I nodded my thanks and stepped across the low threshold into the home’s warm interior. The air was pungent with the smell of herbs. Bundles of them hung from the low rafters.
“Tea?” her voice was delicate, belying her age. It was the voice of a much younger woman, of a girl. I blinked at its tenor. I stood by the door and pulled off my heavy shoes as she sauntered through the cozy room in a long tunic and thick leggings.
“Yes, please,” I answered her slim back. I watched the woman as she deftly filled a dark kettle with water ladled from a wooden basin, and hung it upon a metal hook above the fireplace’s crackling flames. Her fine fingers were enjoyable to watch as she pulled herbs from various bundles and chopped them for the tea.
“Please sit,” she said without glancing up from her work.
I stood watching her from the threshold, but chose a seat by the fire at her beckoning. A small wooden chair decked in soft, thick sheep’s fleece. My heavy eyes watched the flames as they licked against the blackened logs and swept against the bottom of the kettle.
The woman suddenly stood before me again, stooping slightly to pull the kettle from the fireplace and pour a stream of its boiling liquid into two earthenware mugs. She placed one of the hot cups in my cold hands. Tendrils of aromatic steam rose to caress my face. The tea’s odor was pungent and woodsy and unfamiliar. My hostess sunk into a chair beside mine and folded her thin legs beneath herself in a rather childlike manner. The large mugs seemed too big for her delicate hands. In the fire’s flickering glow her face appeared less wrinkled than before, though still marked somehow with lines of sorrow or weariness. Perhaps lonesomeness.
I glanced around the small space and noted only feminine touches, no sign of a companion. A wooden table decked with a white cloth and delicate vases upon the windowsills filled with forest blooms. A neatly made bed set snuggly against the room’s corner, crowned with plump pillows and patterned throws. Brightly colored rugs lay across the cabin’s wide-plank floorboards. I found the woman watching me with those keen eyes as I returned my gaze to the fire. I could not read her face, could not see past the surface of those unnervingly light eyes, like twin pools of clear water.
“Do you have a question for me? Ask me, if you do. For I so seldom have visitors at my hearth these days.” She spoke plainly and clearly in that odd voice of hers. No annoyance towards my prying gaze.
I took a sip from my mug before I answered her. The hot brew soothed my throat and warmed my chest. Its sharp earthiness seemed to loosen my tongue and send color to my chilled cheeks.
“Who are you?” I said simply. Those luminous eyes shuttered briefly, and my hostess’s pink mouth formed a beauteous smile.
“You have known me your whole life, and yet you cannot recognize me. I am older than I appear, yet my youth has still been stolen. You know me not, though you are of me. I speak plainly, but riddled. For you will not - and cannot - understand.”
Her voice rang with an unutterable depth as she spoke. The woman’s face was fierce and alive; her beauty flared glaringly bright for a few shining moments. I saw no lines or marks upon her face as she spoke. She burned with beauty beside the glowing hearth as honeyed words fell tinkling from her soft mouth. My eyes were heavier than before, my body warm from without and within. My large mug was somehow empty. Words lisped from my numb lips with effort.
“How did I find you?”
Her laugh was gentle but true. “You did not. I have found you.”
Those words filled my mind briefly before I felt my eyes close and my consciousness slip away from my reach.
I awoke in my hostess’s bed beneath a luxuriously cozy duvet, my head cushioned against a down pillow. The woman lay on her back beside me, her bare shoulder pressed warmly against my chest. Both of us lay naked.
It was dead of night. Outside the windows only darkness. The hearth glowed ruddily, its hot coals crackling in a comforting way. In the faint light of the dying fire I could see that my companion was also awake. I wondered what potion she had given me to cause me to sleep. And for what purpose? She turned suddenly to face me, her eyes like silvery stars in the fire’s afterglow.
“What should I call you?” I asked in a whisper.
My hostess sighed deeply and closed those shining eyes. Deep in thought. Her hand searched for mine under the covers, and I let her grasp it. Her grip was stronger than her fine hands hinted at, the thin fingers soft by solid.
“I have been called so many things. So many names have I had. But there is no power in a name. My power resides elsewhere. Name me as you will.” She turned to face me with her dark head upon my pillow, her open eyes like the moon’s reflection on a still pond, her pretty mouth inches from my own. The shifting light set odd shadows dancing across her pale skin.
“Selene,” I said simply, automatically. Her teeth looked like pearls in her mouth as she smiled.
“That will do nicely,” she trilled in that strange voice.
Selene kept her eyes open wide as she leaned across the empty space between us and brought her pink, soft lips to meet my own. Warmth spread through me at her kiss, as she brushed that finely shaped mouth across my lips, my cheekbones, my neck. Beneath the covers, her slender fingers stroked my palm in a taunting way. Selene brought her mouth to my ear and swept her tongue against its shell. The warmth inside of me changed to a burning.
As if sensing the change, she pulled her mouth from my flesh and peered deep into my eyes with her own unfathomable orbs. Her hair was glorious as it fanned in dark waves around her shoulders. I glimpsed the dark nipples of her small, hard breasts and my insides felt molten. Selene put a thumb in my mouth and I suckled it, my teeth scraping against its soft pad.
“I will have you,” she intoned. I nodded with her thumb still deep in my mouth. Her own mouth curved into a terrible smile and I shuddered as her other hand disentangled from my own and her deft fingers immediately found my slick clitoris. Selene stroked and teased me with finesse. Those fingers swept my wetness in skillful circles, then drew swift lines up and down the center of me. Selene sat above me, watching my face intently. Her long locks were wild and her small nipples peaked. The dark curls of her sex pressed wetly against my thigh.
Selene’s fingers slowed. Every stroke was a beautiful torment, each movement too gentle. I moaned in frustration. At my sound her fingers stilled, and I raised my head to gaze wildly up at her lovely face. In desperation, in silent plea.
“How much do you want?” Selene’s voice was preternaturally calm, though her gilded eyes held a sheen of lust. My own voice was hoarse as I answered her.
“Everything,” I replied.
Such a terrible beauty stole over Selene’s face as she grinned and set her shining eyes upon my aching sex. I swallowed thickly in anticipation. Without another word, she spread my legs further open and brought her mouth down to the apex of my thighs.
At the first lick of her lovely tongue I moaned and thrashed my head upon her plump pillow. Her tongue so carefully traced the outer folds of me and my breathing ratcheted at her gentle licking. Slowly, she brought two of those slim fingers inside of me and pumped them within me. Selene’s mouth lavished my throbbing clitoris with suckling kisses as her fingers moved deeper inside of me. With a different finger she reached for another crevice of me, and I surrendered all of me, my thoughts consumed with the building tension between my legs.
My hostess took her time. She held me at the precipice of release for what felt an eternity, those fingers burrowing deeper and her soft mouth ravishing me. Tears traced down my flushed cheeks as I moaned in frustration and pleasure.
When Selene finally pushed me over the edge it was like no release I'd ever experienced before. I screamed at its force, at the torrents of pleasure that washed over me as Selene's tongue and fingers wrung my climax from me. Selene raised her dark head from between my bare legs and looked up at me with her eyes like mirrors in the predawn light, her lips shining with my slickness. She came to me and I wrapped her thin frame in my arms, the herbal scent of her scalp in my nostrils as I drifted to sleep.
In the morning I awoke alone with my face towards the cabin’s wall. The bed’s covers were soft against my bare skin, and my sex ached faintly from the previous night’s pleasure. Behind me was the homey clatter of Selene in her small kitchen and the crackling of the fire in the hearth. I shifted beneath the covers and Selene sensed my wakefulness.
“Good morning,” her voice carried to me from across the warm room. “Tea?”
She’d asked me so yesterday, when I’d appeared without warning on her doorstep.
“Yes,” I answered her.
I arose from the bed and strode naked to the hearth. There my clothing lay draped carefully upon my seat from the evening before. I pulled on my thick sweater and faded jeans and wool socks. I sat again upon the fleece covered stool. The hearth was alive again, its flames merry and strong.
I did not watch Selene as she cut the herbs this morning, but listened as she chopped them slowly. Her steps sounded strangely shuffling as she carried two sturdy mugs once more to the fireside. My eyes remained riveted on the flames as my hostess filled both cups with steaming water. The delicate hand that placed one of those mugs in my own waiting fingers was wrinkled and aged.
I looked up from the fire in surprise to see the woman before me. The same starlight eyes, the same shapely mouth, but with long hair now silver upon her shoulders. I knew the woman to be my Selene, but her face was now lined sharply with age. With sorrow, with lonesomeness. I saw despair now in her unfathomable eyes, despair tinged with a certain stubbornness and strength. Her small hand shook slightly as she set the tea in my grasp. I watched my hostess as she hobbled to her seat and sat rigidly upon its edge, no longer curled upon it like the evening before.
Her eyes searched my face, but I could not say what expression it held. What thoughts lay there for her to read? I knew not what to think. Both of us were silent for a spell. The herbal, earthy tea was again a balm on my throat as it warmed me. Finally, the old woman spoke.
“Thank you for my name. I shall cherish it for a while.”
For the first time I detected something ageless in her voice; clear and bell-like and wise.
“Of course,” I spluttered. Was that all that I had given her? A name? “Selene.” I added.
Selene gave me a gracious bob of her grey head. I watched her wizened fingers as they curled around her large mug. Silence bloomed around us again.
When the last of my tea was drunk I stood and strode to the cabin’s ancient wooden door. My hostess trailed behind and watched me with an expression of something age-old that I could not place. With my boots laced up, I turned once more to bid her farewell. Selene's aged face shone with tears. Stooping, I pressed kisses against her wrinkled forehead, on her sunken cheeks, her small mouth, and lastly, against her trembling fingers.
I crossed her threshold into autumn sunshine. Crimson leaves lay strewn across the tiny lawn. I kept my gaze upon the ground and my dusty boots that trod upon it. My mind wandered as I traversed the empty woods. After a time, I glanced up. Stoney trail, tall trees decked in fiery hues, tall emerald grasses, and a steely autumn sky. And no house in sight.
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