Grayling's Song

by Karen Cushman

  A nearby shrub offered late sweet whortleberries, and with the ham and an onion from Sylvanus’s saddlebags, they had a fine supper even without the cheese. Grayling dropped a bit of berry into her pocket for Pook, but the mouse said, “Nay, I fear my belly still suffers from the toad’s dinners.” With a burp, he snuggled deeper.

  While they ate, the company aired their various worries and concerns, for which none of them had answers. They all spoke at once: “How much farther? Why the wind? Will we find the grimoire? What else is in store for us?”

  “You, Graybeard,” Auld Nancy said to Sylvanus. “Help us. Ask your cheese what it knows.”

  He shook his head and held the cheeses close to his chest.

  “Is that not its purpose?” Auld Nancy asked. “Why we called at the widow’s cottage? Show us how it is done.”

  With what might have been a groan or a grumble or a growl, Sylvanus removed the cheeses from around his neck. With his knife he sliced small bits from each round and dropped them into the smaller of his metal cups, which he placed on the embers of the fire while muttering strange mutters and chanting peculiar chants.

  The melting cheese gave off the aroma of sour milk and cinnamon, and Grayling, though full of berries and ham, thought they might do better to eat the cheese than do whatever Sylvanus was planning.

  “You, girl,” he said finally to Pansy, “fetch water.” He held the larger cup out to her.

  Pansy limped and moaned so as she edged closer to him that Grayling snatched the cup herself. She found her way back to the muddy brook and returned with a cup of water.

  Sylvanus’s chants grew louder as he took the cup with the cheese from the fire, protecting his hand with the hem of his gown, and poured its contents into the larger cup in a stream, making loops and coils on the surface of the water. There was a sizzle as the hot cheese met the cold water, and then silence.

  Sylvanus poured the cooled cheese onto the ground. “The shape the cheese has taken will tell us what we need to know,” he said.

  “It looks like a lump of cheese,” Grayling said.

  Sylvanus frowned at her. “I must concentrate,” he said, and he studied the cheese from all directions. He broke off small bits, rubbed and smelled them. “Indeed,” he said finally, “a lump of cheese.”

  “What means that?” asked Grayling. “Does it tell us who is behind this evil smoke and shadow?”

  “It tells us it is a lump of cheese! A lump of cheese!” Sylvanus shouted. “The cheese is useless.”

  “Do not fret, Sylvanus,” said Auld Nancy, patting his arm. “Leastwise, now we can eat it.” She used Sylvanus’s knife to cut a large section from the rounds of cheese for each of them. Then, their bellies full and their lips still blue from berries, they lay beneath the trees on beds of fallen leaves and fern fronds. All was silent but for Sylvanus now and then muttering, “Lump of cheese!”

  Grayling felt Pook leave her pocket to feast on the seeds and crumbs of cheese on the ground. Satisfied, he groomed his whiskers and, with a sigh, crawled over her skirt and settled in her pocket once more. She smiled. What little time it had taken for her to become attached to him. A mouse! At home she would have chased him from the cottage with a broom and a curse. But here . . . she patted her pocket tenderly before she fell asleep.

  In the morning, Grayling sang her way forward, and the others followed. The woods here were different from the woods in Grayling’s valley. The air was damper, the ground wetter. Ancient moss-laden oaks rose from thick carpets of ferns, and willow branches, laden still with mist, trailed nearly to the ground like the long sleeves of a wedding dress. Downed trees supported young sprouts whose roots arched around the logs, seeking the ground. “Nurse logs,” said Sylvanus. “They give life and support to the young trees.”

  “In truth?” Grayling asked him.

  “In truth.”

  “And there truly is such a thing as soothsaying with cheese?”

  “Most certainly,” said Sylvanus.

  “The world is full of things most peculiar,” she said.

  “And things most astounding, young Grayling. Most astounding. Why, in places in this world are snails so big folks can live in their shells.”

  “No!”

  Sylvanus nodded so heartily that crumbs of cheese flew from his beard. “Aye. And to the west are islands where men have the heads of hounds and go naked in all types of weather. And another where people have horses’ feet. Would you not like to see these places?”

  “No, I want only to go home,” Grayling said at once. But men with horses’ feet? That she would like to see.

  From time to time the wind blew through, icy and sharp, and then subsided, leaving the air thick and heavy. Grayling found breathing difficult. Her lungs hurt from the effort and her steps grew slower and slower, but she sang on as she walked.

  As they ventured farther, there was no path, and Grayling lurched and stumbled as she forced her way through, tearing her bodice and scraping her arms on the thorny bushes. Auld Nancy and Desdemona Cork followed, but Sylvanus and Pansy hung back, jostling to be last in line, snarling at each other like two ill-tempered but cowardly dogs.

  They pushed through to a sort of clearing, foreboding and dark with dread. Here the trees were thinner and blackened, the ground scorched as if by fire. Charred wood and ashes crunched beneath their feet. Even Sylvanus’s spotted mule was ill at ease. Eyes round with fear and nose speckled with foam, he began to back away, and Sylvanus had to urge, wheedle, and pull him forward.

  Grayling heard the sound of something moving just beyond, something large, moving slowly, smoothly over the ground. The air was dense with the smell of smoke, scorched wood, and something unidentifiable—acrid and sharp and bitter in the nose. Then came a gibbering and groaning, a howling and hissing, from nowhere and everywhere, reverberating. Grayling covered her ears, but the sound was inside her, pounding and echoing.

  She grabbed Auld Nancy’s hand and stood as if frozen, and her companions lurched into her. Gliding toward them was a horrid creature, all scales and flames and teeth.

  XI

  huge snake, big enough to swallow a man whole, slithered into the clearing. Its black scaled body, rippling and throbbing, coiled around itself. Its eyes flamed red, and, opening its huge mouth, the snake hissed and howled and breathed fire.

  Flames turned trees into torches and sizzled as they met patches of mist and dew. There came a great fluttering in Grayling’s pocket, and Pook burst forth, a raven again. With a harsh cronk, a squawk, and a flapping of wings, he soared into the sky and away. The mule made a sound between a whinny and a grunt and, ears flattened, bolted, saddlebags swinging.

  The snake flicked its tail and coiled it around Grayling, pulling her close and squeezing her breathless. A harsh odor burned her throat and stung her eyes. She struggled to breathe. Twisting and wriggling, she fought to free herself, but the snake held her tight. She could do nothing.

  Pansy and Desdemona Cork had run away, but Grayling could see Sylvanus, rubbing his beard and mumbling incantations, and Auld Nancy, poking the snake’s middle with her broom and screeching, over and over.

  Whether it was due to Sylvanus’s magical intervention or Auld Nancy’s battering, Grayling did not know or care, but the snake opened its mouth, flicked its sharp tongue, and loosed its coils.

  Bruised and sore, reeking of the serpent’s stink, trembling with terror, Grayling turned and ran with Sylvanus and Auld Nancy back into the thicket of trees, where they caught up with Pansy and Desdemona Cork.

  Together they tore out from the trees onto a path that twisted and turned on its way back to the road. Finally, when they heard nothing behind them but the whooshing sound of fire and the crack of branches snapping from the heat, they stumbled to a stop. Grayling doubled over, trying to catch her breath. Her face smarted and her legs trembled. Auld Nancy dropped to the ground, her head drooping. Pansy pulled at the old woman’s sleeve, bleating, “We must go! Up! Up!”

 
Although Grayling too was eager to put distance between herself and the monstrous snake, she knew Auld Nancy did not have the strength to rise and run farther. And the day was growing dark. They could not see to flee or to hide. Desdemona Cork helped Grayling gather enough fallen leaves and bracken to make a bed, and hungry and cold and frightened, the five travelers huddled together like kittens.

  It was dawn when Grayling woke to Sylvanus saying, “’Tis important to note that the serpent has not followed nor threatened us.”

  “Certes, those flames were a threat,” said Desdemona Cork, her face gray beneath her blue markings. She stood, brushing leaves from her veils and shawls and skirts. “’Tis foolish to put ourselves in such danger. I am away.”

  Auld Nancy said, “Desdemona Cork! You cannot think to be on the road alone, not with the smoke and shadow on one side and that terrible creature on the other. ’Twould not be safe. We must stay together.”

  “And do what?” Desdemona Cork asked. She looked up the road and down. Grayling could see the pulse pounding in the enchantress’s throat. Shaking her hair and her skirts, Desdemona Cork sat down again, and Auld Nancy took her hand.

  “Now, Sylvanus,” said Auld Nancy, “what meant you?”

  “I mean, I believe the beast is there but to keep us from the grimoires. We will come to no harm unless we try to get closer.”

  I was in the snake’s grasp, Grayling thought. Certes, I felt that the creature meant me harm, and I have bruises to prove it. She shivered at the recollection. “We are here because the grimoires may tell us what to do about the evil force,” she said. “And my mother’s grimoire is through those woods. We must get closer.” Her legs ached, and her head hurt, and she wished to be anywhere else. “But how can we ever get past such a creature?”

  “Alas, we cannot,” said Sylvanus in a voice hollow and forlorn. “Best we leave it for some master magician to come and—”

  “I thought you were a master magician, Sylvanus,” said Auld Nancy. “The others are rooted to the ground. There must be something you can do.”

  “Nay,” said Sylvanus, blowing his nose. “Alas, alas, I cannot.”

  “My mother and all the others,” said Grayling, “are we just to leave them spellbound? Let them turn completely into trees? What will happen to the world if all the witches and wizards and cunning folk are helpless, and all the power rests in the evil force?” She rubbed her ash-smudged face with her sleeve. “You say you know charms and conjuration. What use is your enchanted scholarship if you can do nothing?”

  Said Sylvanus, “Wise men say, ‘when your foe breathes fire, ’tis folly to be brave.’”

  A brisk wind set tall trees to groaning, dead leaves swirled around Grayling’s feet, and the cries of foxes and badgers echoed through the woods. Pansy clung to Auld Nancy’s skirts, and no one made a sound but for the thumping of their hearts.

  Grayling was afraid. She studied the others. Sylvanus Vetch, teacher of enchanted scholarship at the school in Nether Finchbeck, he, too, was afraid. Auld Nancy with her bluster, skittish Desdemona Cork, fainthearted Pansy, and Grayling herself—all afraid.

  Grayling cast about for some way to embolden them. What would Hannah Strong do? “My mother,” Grayling said at last, “has a heartening song, and I believe we are in need of one now.” And she sang loud and sweet and true:

  You cannot just sit here,

  Dreaming and hoping.

  March forward to battle

  With pennants unfurled.

  I call on your courage,

  No fretting or moping.

  Stand tall.

  Stand tall.

  If we stand alone,

  It still must be done.

  If it must be done,

  You are the one.

  “And you, and you, and you,” she sang, gesturing to each of her companions. And me, Grayling thought, with a shudder. And me.

  The words of the song settled softly on their hearts like snowflakes, and they were cheered. “Enough fussing and dawdling,” said Auld Nancy, clapping her hands. “I shall attack this creature with thunder and lightning and send him scuttling in fear like a lamb fleeing a wolf!” She stood, smoothed her skirts and her wimple, and turned back the way they had come. “If I do not set myself afire first.”

  The others stumbled behind her, down the road, over the blackened ground, and through the charred and shriveled trees. They approached the clearing with steps that grew slower and slower.

  While the others took cover behind a tree, Auld Nancy stepped forward. “Hie, snake,” she shouted in a shaky voice. She cleared her throat and began again. “Hie, are you here? Show yourself!” There was no response, and she turned with a shrug to the others.

  And then, with a cracking of branches and crunching of bushes, the snake slipped into the clearing. Grayling vowed she could hear a heart pounding wildly in every chest, even the serpent’s.

  The great snake opened its mouth, hissed and howled, and spit flames. Grayling heard the whoosh of the flames, the crackle of branches afire, and the cronk of a raven, as Pook—she thought it must be Pook—tore through the blazing branches and soared into the sky, his tail feathers aflame.

  Auld Nancy backed up a few steps, lifted her broom, and began to chant:

  O spirits of the storm,

  Let fire meet earth.

  Let a storm spring forth

  And shafts of fire come down

  To assault our enemy and strike him low.

  So might it be.

  She muttered and murmured, swaying with her eyes closed and broom pointing to the sky.

  May my power bring lightning,

  May my anger bring thunder.

  Open, skies, and rend clouds asunder!

  Suddenly the sky turned dark and thunder cracked. Lightning split the air and splintered trees, bringing branches crashing to the ground. Sparks flared and sizzled, scorching Sylvanus’s gown and Pansy’s hair. Flashes of lightning lit the clearing; thunder rumbled and roared.

  Grayling had pulled her cloak over her head and did not peek out until the commotion had ended. She was grieved to see the snake still there, massive and scaly and untouched by Auld Nancy’s lightning. It coiled its quivering body, switched its tail, and let loose a ghastly hiss.

  The company fled back into the woods. At a safe distance, Auld Nancy, face red and hands atremble, dropped to the ground. “I cannot direct the lightning truly enough to strike the beast, and I know nothing more to do.”

  Grayling felt her face sag like an empty feed sack. She turned to Desdemona Cork, but the enchantress shook her head. “I have had no practice enchanting monstrous serpents, nor do I wish to learn. I say we go elsewhere.”

  “Sylvanus,” said Auld Nancy, with Pansy hiding behind her skirts, “I challenged the creature, and, though scorched, I still stand. Might you not try?”

  Sylvanus’s face paled with fear, but Grayling took his hand and squeezed gently. Pulling his cloak tightly about him, he moved again toward the clearing, the others trailing far behind. He narrowed his eyes and glowered at the creature, which blew fire. Grayling near choked in the ash-and-cinder-filled air.

  Sylvanus hastened back toward the trees where the others waited. “’Tis well known,” he said, “that a true magician casts spells and curses at a distance. Preferably a great, great distance.”

  He said ahh and hmm several times, scratched his nose, and rubbed his beard. He peeked from behind a tree and stared at the serpent for long moments. He muttered and swayed, cleared his throat, and hummed. He lifted a pine branch still smoldering and shook it in the beast’s direction. “Foul creature from the depths of the earth, beast of fire and doom, may you vanish, retreat, exist no more,” he intoned.

  Grayling peered around Sylvanus. The snake was still there.

  With another shake of the fiery branch, Sylvanus called, “May you become as small as a drop of rain, a grain of sand, a hummingbird’s eye, the elbow of a flea. May you become so small you become nothing
at all, and trouble us no more.”

  The snake still was there. Its serpentine body quivered and sparks flew from its mouth.

  Sylvanus rubbed his nose and rumpled his hair. “That was my finest dematerializing spell. Defeating monsters is not my expertise, I fear. I can do no more.”

  His magic was as useless as Auld Nancy’s. Grayling’s belly clenched like a fist. Had the serpent defeated them? Was their journey over? No, she told herself. No!

  Grayling studied the snake carefully. “Sylvanus, look. ’Tis odd, but the creature has changed some.” She went a little closer. “I can almost see through it, as if it were made of a fine, thin cloth with something moving behind, a shape here, a shadow there.”

  Sylvanus looked. “Aye, ’tis strange.” He studied the beast. “I expect that this creature is not a serpent at all but a glamour, and my spell has caused the glamour to thin.” Grayling shook her head in puzzlement, so Sylvanus continued. “There be three kinds of serpents: serpents by nature, serpents by spell or curse, and serpents by glamour. A magic spell turns a person into a serpent. A glamour spell makes a person appear to be a serpent, but in truth he is not. ’Tis but an illusion.”

  An illusion? The coils squeezing her had felt very real. “Can a glamour spell be overturned?”

  “Someone must be brave and determined enough to reach a hand through the glamour and grasp the one bewitched through the beastly guise.”

  “Be you certain, Sylvanus?” asked Auld Nancy. “It sounds too easy.”

  “Easy, you say again? Easy?” Grayling spit and sputtered. “Easy for you, perhaps, who does not have to put her hand through a scaly, hissing creature.” For Grayling knew it must be she. She had grown fond of her companions—well, not Pansy—but did not think any of them brave and determined enough to approach the monstrous serpent. Was she? Could she risk the snake’s crushing grasp again?

  Her heart was racing and her palms sweaty, and although she wanted only to run away, she went a little closer and looked up, up, up.