CHARIS IN THE WORLD OF WONDERS: Excerpt

“When I swung over that windowsill, everything changed for me. We are meant to go in and out of doors in civilized style, but my mother bade me climb into woodsy wildness and a darkness flushed with crimson light and torches …”

And so begins the long journey through the wilderness as Charis is forced to leave behind her family in search of safety, and ultimately a new life, in CHARIS IN THE WORLD OF WONDERS, published by Ignatius Press.

Written by Marly Youmans, an award-winning author who also penned the novels, Catherwood, The Wolf Pit, Glimmerglass, Maze of Blood and A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, CHARIS IN THE WORLD OF WONDERS takes readers along for the perilous journey as they root for Charis’ success amongst difficult odds.

We’re delighted to feature this excerpt!

“Hortus!”

How strangely a human voice clangs on our ears in the deep forest when no one seems near! And yet the word was only my own, eagerly ringing out.

Our Lincolnshire Black—so my father called the gelding because he was a sturdy horse with the white stockings of the old breed, though he might not have been English at all—was standing in a deep pool below the lacy white frills where a stream tumbled over ledges, and never did I find water with its fine meanders and laughing over stones to be as beautiful as at that moment. He lifted his head and surveyed me and knew me.

I smiled for the pleasure of gazing at him and for the hour that turned more golden than before, the beams of sun growing intense and gilding Hortus with its rays.

“Hortus. Hortus, come to me,” I called softly.

He dipped his head to the water and drank before moving down the stream, his head rocking. I reveled in the sight of something saved from the mayhem of the day past. His legs splashed in the water. I could see right through the current to the pebbles underneath, and the jocund sunlight struck sparks from the water. As if in a mirror-glass, I glimpsed another world of gay-colored agates and purest clarity and playful stars.

Bending low, I crept under a trunk and scrambled over a wedge of stone to gain the brink.

“Hortus, Hortus.” I found myself again in tears and reached for his neck. The anvil of his head nudged against me, and he blew air shudderingly from his nostrils.

“I must have sensed that you were something good for me and not some wild beast,” I told him.

His lips mumbled at the stream. When he caressed me with the side of his head, I reached for the unfamiliar reins.

“Who put this on you?” 

The simple bridle was not leather but a fine basket weave of some unfamiliar sort, the brow- and nose-bands dyed with red ochre. 

“And where did you toss the horseman?” 

I swept a hand over his side, noticing a streak of yellow earth on his haunches. 

“Hortus, what an adventure you must have had,” I said. “Did someone ride you bareback into the woods? And where is he?”

I whirled and stared behind me. The gloom of the trees beyond the glade did not answer, and Hortus kept the secret of his brief captivity among the warriors. Turning back, I seized the reins and bent his head to mine.

“Wait here for me. Stay. Stay.”

He snorted at me as I stepped slantwise, keeping my eyes on him. I climbed from the stream, hauling myself up by a root, and hurried to where I had dropped the sling and sealskin. Once or twice I felt affrighted that my way had vanished, but I looked over my shoulder at the spot too often to be truly lost.

“Hortus!” The sound of his name was all that connected us, once he was no longer in sight.

One worry often gives way to the next; having a fear that he would be gone on my return, I grasped my few worldly possessions in my arms and did not stop to arrange them.

“Hortus, Hortus—“

In the clearing where the higgledy-piggledy trees were jackstraws for giants’ play, Hortus lifted his head and glanced at me, asking, I guessed, why I called his name so often.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing