Chapitre 294: The Vale of False Lovers
"Make sure to come back in time for breakfast!" Madame Dulac called out. "I'll have the servants make pancakes!"
"Don't worry, Madame D!" Enora shouted back. "We'll have the young miss back before you know it!"
In truth, Oleandra had no idea what she expected to find in this place; nor did she have any idea where to even begin looking for whatever it was Merlin had sent her here to retrieve. Luckily, Mai, Morgan le Fay's current incarnation, seemed to have an inkling of the true nature of Oleandra's prize, and she even knew where to look for it.
According to her, it would only be a short walk through the forest before they reached their destination, and so the group set off into the forest, following a narrow path through the thick undergrowth.
"Your mother trusts your judgment an awful lot," Oleandra commented loudly enough for their three Muggle followers to hear. "You haven't checked my memories, so as far as she knows, I could be a ministry spy. And I did beat those three pretty handily, too."
Oleandra looked back over her shoulder to watch the Muggles' reactions to her provocative words. Evidently, those three didn't trust her as much as the Madame did. Julianne, the muscle woman, looked tense, ready to spring on her at the slightest wrong movement. Enora the markswoman looked relaxed, but she kept her hand over her holster. And the receptionist Gwen was walking very close to Mai…
"I always know when somebody is lying," said Mai matter-of-factly, before standing on tiptoes to whisper in Oleandra's ear, "you should be very familiar with this ability, yes?"
"Does your mother know what you are?" Oleandra whispered back.
Mai signalled for Gwen to move away from her, before shaking her head slightly.
"That I'm a Great Fairy? Specifically, the reincarnation of the Round Table's worst enemy?" she whispered. "What do you think? She just knows I can identify liars, which is why she puts a lot of weight on my judgments."
The small group kept on walking in silence, and for a while, the only sounds to be heard were the snapping of fallen branches being stepped upon and the rustling of leaves in the wind.
"Morganna would like to speak to Viviane for a bit," Mai suddenly said as they reached a bend in the path. "Would that be okay?"
"What does she want?" said Oleandra, perhaps a bit more harshly than she'd meant to.
Mai's expression changed almost imperceptibly; replaced by one that did not belong on a seven-year-old girl's face. It was an expression filled with the weariness of age, and the regret of things that could not be undone.
"Please," Mai's voice spoke in an almost husky tone. "I have no idea how I could have forgotten, but I recently remembered her. I… I wanted to apologize— for everything. I was not in my right mind when I—"
Oleandra's expression hardened.
"Viviane has nothing to say to you," she spat in a low voice. "Murderer."
Mai's face returned to normal, and she looked anxiously at Oleandra. For a moment, it seemed like she was going to say something, but she instead bit her lip and kept quiet.
The small group continued winding their way through the dense forest, through a deep valley, until they arrived in a large clearing. At the edge of the clearing grew an enormous tree— larger and taller than any Oleandra had ever seen before.
"This place is the source of the enchantments which safeguard our town," Gwen explained. "Before you lies the Mother Tree; village legend says that it was once a young maiden. On the day of her marriage, she caught her fiancé cheating on her with a milkmaid. Heartbroken by his infidelity, she sought oblivion, and thus turned herself into a tree."
She blew her nose into a tissue, before wiping away a tear. She was obviously the romantic type!
"This entire valley we're in is cursed," Mai added with a wink, "Morgan le Fay did it herself. Our village forbids men from entering this place, just to be safe. Any man who has ever been unfaithful will be unable to leave; and thus, the name Vale of No Return; or Vale of False Lovers."
The three young Muggle women looked at Mai with disapproving eyes. A seven-year-old shouldn't be speaking of things such as lovers or infidelity!
"In any case, the tree is as potent a Source as a Ley Line," Mai continued. "It powers all of our village's magic. Without it, we would have been found long ago; any magical child born here is not detected, and thus is not registered with the Ministry."
The tree felt awfully familiar to Oleandra; she could feel a faint bond between it and her; almost as if it was her kin. If her hunch was correct, then that tree was most likely her bloodline ancestor; the first ever Greengrass. It had once been Viviane's friend, and more than likely, Morgan's as well, if she had truly cursed the entire valley for its— or rather— for her sake.
Oleandra didn't know what to think about these people using her ancestor as a battery; if the Maiden in Green truly powered all of the village's enchantments, then had she added the lightning to the Thief's Rainfall as a cry for help? She didn't deserve this treatment…
If what Oleandra had just been told was true, then the Maiden in Green was truly a tragic figure. Stuck in an unageing body, she had likely never expected to find love… It must have destroyed her to have all hope of happiness taken from her, on the day of her wedding, of all days. It must have been a shotgun wedding too, or the Greengrass family would obviously never have come into being if the bride had immediately turned herself into a tree before having the chance to give birth to a child…
As Oleandra approached said tree, she noticed two shimmering, ornately decorated crystal boxes glinting at the foot of the massive tree trunk; each one bearing a silver plaque inscribed with runes. Noticing Oleandra stopping to admire them, Gwen began to explain:
"The old bitch Morgan le Fay's final resting place. If you can read runes, it says so on the plaque," she said, spitting on the grave. "She's made her coffin out of some sort of indestructible diamond-like material, so we can't even get rid of it; Lord knows we've tried. As for the coffin next to it, we assume it belongs to one of her favourite lackeys or one of her daughters; but the name on the plaque's been magically scrambled, so we have no idea who it belongs to."
"Can't graffiti 'em, either," Julianne added. "Or move 'em elsewhere. Mighty powerful Permanent Sticking Charm, or summat o' the same nature."
Upon leaning in to get a look inside the two see-through, crystalline coffins, Oleandra instantly recognized the two bodies that had been laid to rest inside of them. Morgan and Viviane, as beautiful and as young as she remembered them from her dream visions. Viviane's body had its hands clasped together over her chest; her wand placed underneath her hands.
"Hang on," Enora said in surprise. "The name on the other one, it's not scrambled any more! It reads— Viviane— Lady of the Lake? — Beloved sister and friend…"
Merlin's sealing spell had slowly but surely erased Viviane's name from human memory and had rendered her name illegible wherever it had been inscribed— but since Oleandra had broken the curse, the world could now begin to remember her, and her name was once again readable.
"The name's strangely familiar…" said the gorilla woman, scratching her head curiously.
"Isn't the Young Miss descended from Lancelot of the Lake?" Gwen pointed out. "Of the Lake… I wonder if there's a connection…"
Oleandra almost wanted to laugh at the tragic irony of fate; Viviane had been reborn as her friend's descendant, while her sister and murderer Morganna had been reborn as Viviane's adopted son's descendant. What a cruel joke…
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