Everyone, meet Ellya.
You know her from Coetir: People of the Woods.
That is, you know her as long as you've read it. She's my primary character, my first person narrator, and she's still one of the funnest voices I have running around inside my head.
So today I'm showing you one of my favorite excerpts from her, one of the first scenes where she really showed herself to me—a scene where I smiled very, very often.
Excerpt from Coetir: People of the Woods by Rani Divine
© Copyright RAD Writing, 2015, All rights reserved
I woke with a start to the sound of mother’s fist pounding on my bedroom door.
My eyes glanced around the room, at all of the leaves that had come in through the window, the pile of blankets that covered my shivering form, and the druid man who sat on the trunk in the corner of the room.
I sat up, my eyes widening when I realized what I saw. “Elim?” I gasped.
“Ellya, open this door,” mother shouted, pounding on the door once again.
“Good morning.” Elim smiled. He was almost perched, squatting on top of my clothes trunk.
“Elim?” I gasped again. “What are you doing here?”
“I believe your mother would like to see you,” he replied calmly, his eyes shifting to the door.
“She can’t see you,” I said frantically as I rolled out of bed.
“I know.” He nodded.
“Hide!” I snapped, pointing to the bed before I pulled on the slide that had locked the door. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Elim stand off the trunk and move toward the bed just as mother pushed the door open.
“If you thought that you were going to leave this house without speaking to your father, you were wrong,” mother snapped as she barged inside.
My eyes widened in shock when I turned around and saw Elim standing in front of the window, smiling at me.
“Ma!” I squealed.
“No buts, Ellya,” she replied. Her eyes surveyed the floor and she walked to the window, apparently unnoticing of the druid who now stood beside it. She pulled back the curtains before she got to work on my bed, folding the blankets and placing them at the foot of the mattress. “Go on, girl,” she said, turning to point her hazel eyes straight into mine. “Clean your teeth and brush your hair. I’ll have your dress ready by the time you’re done.”
I nodded. I didn’t know what to say. My eyes shifted between Elim and mother, and my feet instinctively inched toward the door. It was my usual reaction: when I didn’t know what to do in any given situation, I left.
And this situation was unlike anything that I’d ever imagined.
I backed out of my bedroom and made my way to the washroom to clean my teeth, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Elim leaving my room behind me.
As quickly as I could, I cleaned my teeth and undid my braids, running my wooden brush through the tangles until a scream issued from my bedroom, and I froze in place.
“Noah!” mother’s voice echoed through the halls, calling for father.
I dropped the brush and ran back to my bedroom, getting there just behind my father.
Elim was nowhere in sight, and a small sigh seeped through my lips before I realized that if he wasn’t in my bedroom, he could be anywhere in the house—or anywhere in the village.
If anyone saw him, they would panic. Having a druid in the village could only mean that the treaty had been voided, and that war was about to begin.
“What is it?” father asked as he stepped into my room.
“There’s a snake under your daughter’s bed,” mother replied. She held her hand over her heart and she was breathing deeply, standing as far away from the bed as possible.
“I’ll handle it.” Father chuckled quietly. We both knew that I could’ve removed the snake on my own. I knew more about wildlife than mother did, having worked my post on the perimeter for so long. He turned toward me, green eyes almost identical to mine locking on my gaze. “Get dressed, Ellya,” he said quietly. “We’ll talk once I’ve handled this.”
I watched while he knelt beside my bed to look beneath the frame, until mother took hold of my hand and led me back to the washroom.
She helped me back into my green perimeter guard dress, and tightened my corset before lacing the front of my dress and smoothing it over my hips. “Finish your hair,” she said when she was done. “There’s bread on the table.”
Mother walked away then, leaving me with a brush in my hands.
For a while, time slowed. I didn’t care that Elim was in my house. All that mattered was that I was going to be forced into a match, and I cared little for the man mother had chosen. The only thing I could think of was that I was about to sit through a discussion with my father on how I was to behave from now on, and what my husband-to-be expected of me.
“Do you need help?” Elim asked as he stepped into the washroom.
I gasped, being pulled from my reverie, and dropped the brush in the water basin. “What are you doing here?” I whispered.
“The Vartes told me to come,” he replied. He reached into the basin and pulled out my brush, smiling as he handed it to me.
“Vartes.” I nodded slowly. “Why can’t mother see you?”
“Your kind sees what they expect to see when they set eyes upon the Coetir,” he replied. “Because you wanted to see my true nature, you see it,” he reached out to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear, “and because your mother did not expect to see me in your bedroom, she saw nothing.” He smiled slightly, his fingers toying with my hair. “It’s soft,” he whispered.
“So, none of them will be able to see you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “They will see what they expect, and if I am with you, they will see the one they believe to be most often with you.”
“Adam,” I whispered under my breath.
“Ellya!” mother shouted from the dining room.
“Stay here,” I said. “I have to talk to father for a while, and then I’m going back to the boundary.”
“Boundary?” His brow furrowed, and he tilted his head to the side.
“The line between our land and yours,” I replied, nodding quickly.
“Crossroads.” He nodded, recognition lighting up his face. “I will do as you say.”
“Good.” I nodded again and smiled nervously up at him before I left the room, making my way down the short hall and into the dining space.
I sat beside father at the table, and mother cleared the rest of the house. No matter how much I wanted Adam to be with me, I was left only with my father and a druid who was hiding in my bedroom.
“Your mother’s made her choice,” father said.
This conversation was uncomfortable for both of us. Father had never been the type to force anything on me. All my life he’d been lenient, allowing me to make my own choices, even if those choices went against the ways of the village. Mother never understood it. To her, women were women and men were men, and father and I were upsetting the natural order of things.
“Caleb will have you, and you’ll behave in the way set forth by your match,” he continued, his eyes avoiding mine and instead staring at his own hands. “There’s nothing I can do to stop it, so don’t ask.”
We both knew I hadn’t considered asking. I wouldn’t put my father through that, not after the last time. It always broke his heart to hear those words from my lips.
“It’s not my duty to fight the ways of the village,” he said, “but I spoke to Lionel last night. It’s your mother’s decision.”
I nodded. I already understood. There was nothing that any man save Caleb could do to get me out of this situation.
“What have I been asked to do?” I whispered.
Father’s eyes closed, and he shook his head slowly. “You will cease your duties as perimeter guard within eight months, and you will use that time to learn your mother’s trade.” His eyes opened and looked straight into mine. “You will sit at his table every fifth night until your wedding, and the two of you will begin to settle your affairs together.” He sighed once again, and turned away from me. “If there were another way, you know that I would take it.” His voice was almost a whisper, but I could still understand his words. “You were my pride.”
“I need to go,” I whispered, taking father’s hand. “As soon as I can find a replacement, I’ll leave the guard.” It was what he needed to hear, and I was willing to say it. But I wasn’t about to lie down, and I wasn’t about to become what I was expected to be.
I would make my father proud again.
He nodded and I released his hand before running back to my bedroom. There was only one thing on my mind—how to get the druid out of the village without being seen by someone like me, someone who wanted to see him for what he was.
“Elim,” I whispered harshly as I stepped into my room.
He was standing in front of the window, curiously holding up a panel of my curtains to view them in the sunlight. “What is this made of?” he asked, turning to look me in the eye.
“Cotton.” I shrugged, shaking my head. “I have to go to the perimeter—how am I going to get you out of here?”
“They will see… Adam? When they see me,” he replied, his brow rising slightly.
It was only then that I realized he didn’t actually have eyebrows. His forehead had a semi-circle of five distinct lines coming from his hair to just above his eyes, but there was no hair there. I tilted my head to the side and reached out toward him, smiling slightly when I noticed the somehow bright quality to his black eyes. My hand stopped on his shoulder, and I felt his smooth scaly skin beneath my palm.
“What do you think about?” He cocked his head to the side, his eyes piercing into mine.
I smiled brightly, but I didn’t know how to answer. “Come on,” I said instead. “I have to get back to the boundary.”
By now I heard mother working in the kitchen, and I knew father would be long gone. The sounds of the house were quiet these days. Mother was the only one who worked here now—Adam and I were the only children she had left under her care, and soon it would only be the former.
“Stay here,” I whispered. “Count to ten, and then come out into the main room and we’ll leave.”
I waited until Elim nodded before I left the room, taking my water skin with me.
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