What treasure lies at the heart of the enchanted Tanglewood?

First she is Brown Kagome-a healer who lives in the Tanglewood, a drab girl who, for reasons unknown to her, unnerves the villagers who come for salves and charms. But when she challenges the magician who has held her captive for longer than she can remember, she becomes Green Kagome. Then she is Golden Kagome, traveling through the land, her talking animals and birds (and one silent fox) by her side. And, finally, Russet Kagome, when she finishes the long journey back to where she first grew, and learns the story of who she is, and why her long flaxen hair is interwoven with deep-rooted flowers, plants, berries, and wheat.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Inuyasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, or this story line. The shows belong to their respective creators and the story line and title belong to Meredith Ann Pierce. (Not to be confused with Tamora Pierce.) The only thing that belongs to me is my socks, my backpack, and the idea to post this version of the book.

Note: I have changed some content of this book to accommodate this interpretation of the story. At the end of the story, I will post a list of all the changes I made.

Treasure at the Heart of the Tanglewood

Chapter 1: Brown Kagome

Brown Kagome dwelt at the verge of the Tanglewood. The Tanglewood rose dark and deep. Heaths and moorland stretched to the southeast, scrub barrens to the north. A few poor cottars scratched out meager livings roundabout, mostly cutting peat. The Tanglewood ignored them, standing starkly aloof by a silvery shore. Limitless gray ocean rolled away to the west. A handful of fisherfolk plied its cold, thin waters.

Sometimes, in the far distance past sunset’s haze, Kagome thought she spied lofting cloud. Uplands? An isle? She could not be sure. She herself had never strayed even so far as half a furlong from the margin of the Wood. Those timid souls who, now and again, crept up from the village to forest’s edge could not tell her. They snatched her remedies with hurried thanks and made haste away, crossing their fingers against misfortune and murmuring luck charms beneath their breath. They deemed her Wood an enchanted place.

Folk said a fabulous treasure lay at it’s heart, a noble captive of high esteem; or a miraculous, fragrant, flowering tree; a staff of power; or a strange, unearthly beast, half horse, half stag, with a single, spiral horn thrusting up from its brow. Kagome laughed at their talk. She had never seen any prisoners or marvels within the Wood, only verdigris lichen frosting barren trees’ bark, great ragged rings of burnished-bronze mushrumps stinking like cheese, mudmanders slick as new-whelped pups, and velvet moss softer than green herons’ down.

“Ack! What a midden stench,” cawed Magpie, skimming through the clearing’s gloom to alight on Brown Kagome’s shoulder.

The girl smiled, straightened; the many tattered layers of her dun-colored garment rustled like reeds. Her long hair fell tangled and fair, full leaves and shoots and bits of twig. She pulled a few stands back from one cheek to glance sidelong at the bird.

“You know you love them roasted.”

Kagome brushed damp earth from the smooth, crumpled cap of the mushrump she had just plucked. Her parti-colored companion humped, feet like little rosebarbs pricking.

“Careful,” Magpie instructed, bobbing. “Bruise it and the flesh will ruin.”

“Why even pother with roasting?” Old Badger inquired. Sprawled at Kagome’s feet, he nibbled at a dark golden stalk poised delicately between stubby black forepaws. “I savor them fresh from the soil.”

The brown girl laughed wryly, nudged him with her toe.

“Leave a few for the rest of us-” she started, but a flurry of silver and coppery pelts and charcoal limbs and growling barks arrested her thought. Three canine pups hurtled into the glade. Two were silver dogs, and the last, and youngest, pup was a red fox. Rolling and tussling, they collided with the mushrump ring and trampled its tasty morsels to pasty bits, which smirched the brightness of their coats.

“Fleawits,” Badger grumbled, lumbering to shelter in Kagome’s lee.

“Curs!” Magpie shrieked, diving at them. “You’ll not set one paddy-paw indoors this night. Off! Be off, you malodorous little mongrels.”

Hooting and yapping, the two dog pups and one fox pup scattered. Off into the trees they streaked, Magpie darting behind. Holding back a sigh, Kagome turned from the mess and dropped her last mushrump into her withy basket.

“Well enough,” she said to Badger. “The basket’s full, and so’s your belly. The morn grows late. We’d best fare home.”

The old beast waddled portly in her wake as the brown-garbed girl stepped once more into the Tanglewood. The murk of trees made Kagome shiver. The trail felt clammy beneath her bare footsoles. Breeze withered chill through the dense, leafless branches overhead. That chinks of sky showed through were iron gray.

“Badger,” she asked after a time, “where’d you dwell once, before you came to this Wood?”

The ancient brock waggled his gray-wealed head.

“Don’t know, girl,” he panted. “With the years, I’ve grown so doddy … I can’t recall.”

Kagome stooped to heft the wheezing old thing into her arms. He settled his chin upon her shoulder with a whuff. Sturdy nails tapped lightly against her collarbone.

“Sometimes when I’m digging,” he murmured, “it seems I almost recollect … Or sometimes, when I catch a whiff of dung…” he snorted. “I don’t know why.”

Kagome stroked his coarse, hoary fur. “Magpie isn’t so venerable as you,” she mused. “Yet she doesn’t remember, either. Why’s that?”

Badger sniffed and blew, snuffled and flew, in a rhythm that grew steadily slower and more content. Kagome tickled him between the shoulder blades.

“Strange, don’t you think?”

Old Badger did not reply. His massy head lolled heavily against her. Wind rose, soughing through close-knit timber. The sheer, fawn-colored tissue of Kagome’s gown riffled around her. She heard the pups’ harking in the distance, intermingled with Magpie’s cries. Badger shifted. His snores grew sonorous. Kagome kissed his brindled pate then strode on along the path toward the edge of the Tanglewood.

When Kagome reached her rush hut on the Woodland’s marge that noon, she found a little clutch of cottars waiting; an old man, two women, and a babe. Catching sight of her, they murmured, shawls clutched about the women’s throats, cap gripped awkwardly in the gnarled man’s hands. They watched intently, yet furtively, and Brown Kagome laid slumbering Badger beside his den, stowed her basket within the hut, then crossed to where the cottars stood to see what they would have of her.

Words cam haltingly, their heads bowed low. Their eyes strayed nervously to the Tanglewood. First to step forward was the woman whose babe had a poxy rash. Kagome listened as the other described her daughter’s night sweats and colic. When the woodland girl bent to loosen the bundling rags, she found a deep flush striating the little girl’s breast. She stood a moment, lost in thought, clearing her mind of all other distraction, until it came to her exactly what needed to be done. Lightly, Kagome blew on the fretting child’s forehead until she slept, then pulled some mustard greens and camphor twigs she found tucked in among her locks. They slipped free without a twinge.

“The mustard’s for salve,” she said, placing both into the mother’s poke, “and the camphor to steep. Swab her chest thrice daily with the camphor tea and use the plaster tonight and tomorrow eve. You remember how?”

“Aye, miss,” the woman whispered. “You healed my eldest of the same ill five years since.”

She fell back hastily, shrinking fro Kagome’s touch, and nudged her companion forward. The young matron, lately delivered, had no milk to her teats. Weeping, she said her cousin had taken her newborn away yester night to wet nurse, lest he die. Kagome eyed the other’s bony wrists and hollow cheeks, the dark smudges beneath her eyes.

“You shouldn’t have come,” the brown girl murmured, almost to herself.

The other’s glance leapt up, stricken. “Had to miss! He’s my only babe. I can’t just let another have him. You must help me get him back, help me feed him-”

Kagome clasped the young woman’s hands in hers. “Of course I’ll help you,” she answered firmly. “Be at ease. I only meant that you should have sent another in your stead.”

The young matron’s frame racked and trembled. Fiercely, she shook her head. “I’ve none. My man died. The others, my kith-they’re all afraid.”

Kagome felt her own brow furrow into a frown. “Afraid?” she asked, bewildered. “Of what?”

“Oh! Not you, miss,” the other gasped, clutching her shawl as though she longed to break free, to run. “’Tis … the Wood. Just the Wood.”

Kagome patted the other’s freezing hand. “Nonsense,” she exclaimed. “I venture the Wood daily and find no harm. It yields my livelihood, holds nothing to fear.”

The young matron swayed, her face colorless. Alarmed, the brown-haired girl steadied her. “Wait here,” she said. “I have what you need inside.”

From the hut, Kagome fetched a haversack woven of wild sheep strands gleaned from meadow thorns. Slitting the long, narrow poke down its seams, she lapped it loosely about the young matron’s ribs and shoulders. Presently, the young woman’s shivering ceased. Kagome packed a birch bark box with milk bud shoots and bits of silvery curly moss form her hair, two little sacks of amber acorn flour from the storage chest beside the hearth, a handful of herbs, and a wax-dipped slab of tallow fat-root she had been keeping in a bucket of branch water since the day before.

“Eat all of this by tomorrow night,” she told the young woman. “Don’t share a speck with your timid kith.”

Magpie glided out of the Tanglewood to perch on Brown Kagome’s shoulder, the long plumes of her tail tickling the girl’s elbow. Kagome caught sight of her canine pups at the Wood’s edge. One shook himself, raising a fine, damp spray; another ducked, while the third sat down with a thump and sneezed.

“Wantons,” muttered Magpie. “Chased them twice across the ford, and still they reek.” Teasing a broken shoot from Kagome’s straw-colored locks, she began pecking the wispy thing to shreds. “What does this lot want?”

The cottars stood staring like startled mice.

“Peace, Magpie,” Kagome hissed.

The pied bird laughed uproariously and shrugged. “What matter if I chatter? They won’t grasp a thing I say.”

She spat the shoots out and turned to the village folk. “Will you?” she demanded, ignoring Kagome’s shushing. The cottars glanced uneasily at one another. “Scullions!” Magpie called. “Even this tender slip of a girl kens my speech. Why can’t you?”

The sleeping child began to whimper. The milkless young matron stood rigid as a deer. With a snort, Kagome swept Magpie from her shoulder and tossed her into the air.

“Away, you silly thing. I’ve folk to tend.”

Squawking, the pied bird circled the yard, alighted at length on the rush hut’s peak, where she perched, clucking and preening. The cottars gazed up at her without so much as a flicker of comprehension crossing their drawn and weary faces. Kagome blushed.

“Pay her no heed, I pray you. She means no ill.”

The two women with the child had edged away. The old man stood foremost now. Hesitantly he came forward, clutching his cap.

“I want a curse, miss,” he piped, eyeing Magpie.

Kagome’s jaw dropped.

“To do my neighbor mischief,” he rattled on, wincing when Magpie cawed. “A mortal mischief, aye,” Kagome drew herself up. “All in just cause, miss,” he added hastily, catching sight of the healer’s stance. “None other, I swear.”

Kagome folded her arms. The old man flinched. She felt her mouth grown hard. “Do you think I grant my boons for spite?”

“You’ll not be the loser, miss,” the old man insisted in a rush.

He held up a jingling bag of the round, brownish metal cottars sometimes tried to give her. Kagome turned away, but the villager ducked after, planting himself in her path.

“I’ll settle you well. I’m a moneyed man-” he leaned toward her, still shaking his proffered payment.

“Fie!” Kagome spat and struck his hand aside.

In a flash, the canine pups sped across the yard and leapt to snatch the fallen purse. Romping and snarling, the three of them tore the soft, stitched leather apart. With a cry, the old man scrambled to retrieve his tokens as they rolled and strewed. Kagome watched him, furious.

“Leave me,” she told him evenly.

“Nay, miss!” the cottar cried, running his fingers trough the dust. “You must curse him. He’s a rouge-much younger than I. I’m no match….”

The old man thrust a last handful of coin and dirt back into his cap. Still kneeling, he held it up.

“I’ve more, miss. More of this. I never pay tax, see? I’ll fetch it-”

“Enough!” the fair-haired girl burst out. With a yelp, the old man subsided. “No more,” she told him, “or the curse you’d lay upon your neighbor shall fall to you.”

The old man gaped. The pups, still struggling over scraps, chased hither and fro across the yard. The cottar turned to the two village women, but both looked away. His hands tightened on the bits of metal bunched in his cap, twisting the fabric forlornly. The woodland girl said nothing more. The other opened his mouth as though to speak, hesitated, drew breath, then let it go again in a heavy sigh. Stiffly, he rose, bowed once to Kagome, then turned and shambled away toward the moorlands. The younger healer watched his stooped retreat. Before her, the two women stood trembling, one distractedly soothing her drowsing child, the other weeping silently.

“There Jenna,” the older woman murmured to her companion. Then earnestly turned to Kagome, “We warned him not to ask, miss. Begged him. Pray don’t be wroth with us.”

Flushed, Kagome wrapped her arms about her waist, contrite. “I may be wroth,” she answered softly, “but not with you. You came to me for healing, not for harm”

Both women smiled weakly, visibly relieved. The younger knelt to unbuckle her hamper.

“We’ll be off then, miss,” she said. “Pray you take these with our thanks.”

Kagome waved the scrapple and bannocks away. “I’ve vittles enough.” She gazed once more to the fleeting figure of the old man, nearly running now. The pups had launcher themselves after him, nipping at his heels. Kagome whistled them off. “But tell me,” she asked of the two women, “why would he wish his neighbor harm?”

Her pups trotted up to her. She knelt to stroke them, abruptly straightened and shooed them away. “Off. The lot of you stink.”

“For courting his grandniece,” the older of the two women replied. Her companion hastily rebuked the hamper. “My mother knows the girl,” the first woman continued. “The old miser wants to keep her till she’s withered past wedding.”

“What age is his niece?” Kagome asked.

“Nineteen years, miss,” the younger woman answered, “so she’s near beyond courting. I’m not seventeen myself.”

“His niece lives with him?” Kagome asked. “Is she his housekeeper?”

The young matron nodded. Her companion snorted. “Slave, more like, miss,” she added. “When she weds, he’ll be alone-and his own doing, too. Driven off all other friends and kinsfolk long since.”

Kagome watched the bent form of the old man, surprisingly spry for his years, dwindling with distance as he neared the moors. Sadly, she wondered what she must have done, years and years upon since, to drive away all her own kith and relations-so far in the past now she could not even remember them. Behind her, she heard Badger wake and scratch his cheek. Magpie fluttered long-tailed from the roof to pester him. The two village women fidgeted, anxious to be gone. Kagome brought her gaze back to them as the old man entered the tossing heath.

“Return to me in four days’ time,” she bade them, “if the child’s no better, or the milk hasn’t come.

End of Chapter One

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