The Promise Witch

by Celine Kiernan

  Magda’s troubled brow creased even further. “All alone,” she whispered.

  “Yes!” whispered Mup. “Crow’s not alone. No matter what you tell him. He has people who care about him. He has friends who look after him. Because he’s a good person, Magda, because he’s a good person who cares what happens to others. Not like you.”

  Magda shook her head in self-pity. Tears rolled slowly down her face.

  “You sold your family and friends to keep yourself safe. You hurt other people because the queen told you to. And for what? You have nothing now.”

  “I have nothing.”

  A silvery light was growing behind Mup. It spread a shimmering illumination into the vardo, cancelling the lamplight, and winking in cold highlights from delph and metal and glass as it pushed its way into the interior. Mup turned to see its source. The queen’s moon had risen from behind the black mountains. Mup stared defiantly into its great stupid face.

  “The queen is defeated, Magda. She’ll never rule this kingdom again. You’re too afraid to even face her without sacrificing your son. But the rest of the kingdom has turned its back on her. No matter what she does, she’s lost. And there’s nothing you can do about that.”

  Mup turned as she said this, smiling triumphantly into Magda’s face. Magda was all illuminated with moonlight now, her tears glittering like frost in its chilly light.

  Her black eyes stared straight into Mup’s.

  “Well, hello there,” she hissed, grabbing Mup by the arm. “Who let you out of your little cage?”

  Mup looked down at herself in alarm. The light had filled her with swirling glitter and dense milky fluorescence. She was brilliantly, almost vengefully, visible.

  She shot Doctor Emberly a glance, he was pressed against the wall, safe in the shadows, staring wide-eyed at the moonlight which brushed only the toes of his buckled shoes.

  Magda spun Mup to face the door, thrusting her into full view of the sailing moon. “I am not alone,” she hissed. “I am not alone and I am not forgotten.” Her breath was hot in Mup’s ear. The moon was full and blinding in Mup’s eyes. “My queen waits for me. She, and all my brothers and sisters. Soon we shall unite. Soon we shall march. And when we do, those fools who have dared to spit at me – those who dare to howl vengeance – they will be the first to suffer.”

  Magda rose over Mup, her hair and clothes writhing with feverish triumph. “Will I show you who is alone, little ghost? Little nothing.” Magda gripped the pendant around her neck and shook it so that the world around Mup rattled. Mup cried out. Magda laughed. “Cross me again and I’ll crush this necklace like a bug. Then see what becomes of you.”

  Enraged, Emberly leapt from the shadows. The moonlight glittered on his arm as he reached to snatch the pendant from Magda’s fist.

  Get back! thought Mup. She’ll see you!

  But, before this could happen, Magda dropped the pendant. She cast Mup aside, and strode eagerly to the vardo door, staring up at the lowering moon.

  Free of the witch’s grasp. Mup threw herself into the doctor’s arms. They tumbled into the shadows; out of the reach of the treacherous moonlight. Doctor Emberly was safely invisible once more.

  He glared furiously at Magda. Mup whispered, “Calm down.”

  Magda paid no heed to either of them. She was gazing up at the moon with a lunatic fervour.

  “I am here, Majesty,” she called. “Your faithful daughter is here.”

  The moonlight pushed past her – Mup saw it actually shove Magda aside as it poured its way into the vardo. The witch watched, open-mouthed, as the light flowed across the floor and up the legs of the table, oozing its way over to where Crow lay blinking in his battered cage.

  Glistening tentacles caressed the crooked bars. Frosty light illuminated Crow’s glossy feathers.

  Crow stared up at the great pale face that hung outside his door. For a moment, he seemed to listen to a voice no one else could hear. Then he croaked a laugh.

  “Dream on, Queenie. I’d rather die than work for you.”

  There was a faint shivering in the air. The feel, but not the sound, of cruel, icy laughter.

  Then the moonlight flowed across the table to Mup.

  Mup stepped forward to meet it. “Hello, Grandma,” she said.

  The moonlight touched her and she felt the dry, cold voice of her grandmother form words in her head. Hello, granddaughter. Aren’t you in a pickle?

  “I’m not the one hiding up the mountains throwing tantrums with the weather, while the world gets on without me.”

  There was a moment of pause – as if the moonlight were taken aback – then the sensation of laughter came again: harsher this time, a touch forced. Big words for someone as trapped and helpless as you are.

  Mup shook her head in disgust. “Of course I’m trapped,” she said. “Of course I’m helpless. I’m small. I’m alone. And you’re a powerful witch. It’s always going to be easy for you to hurt me… That doesn’t mean you’re right. It doesn’t mean you’ve won. It just means you’re a bully.”

  Magda listened with undisguised dismay. “The queen is speaking to you?” she whispered. “What is she saying?”

  Mup ignored her.

  Moonlight twined itself in glittering ropes around Mup’s waist: crawled up to breathe ice onto her cheek. We agree on one thing, it said. You are small. You are alone. Magda could do anything she wants to you… But I can protect you from her. I can help you. Would you like to become the most powerful witch in the Glittering Land? I could do that for you. Just speak to your mother, convince her to work with me, and all my power will be yours.

  “My mother will never work with you.”

  “Your mother?” cried Magda in alarm. “What is the queen offering your mother?”

  “Nothing but lies,” snarled Mup. She turned again to the moonlight. “I might be small, Grandma, and I might be alone. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’ve lost. The people have learned to work together now, and that makes them stronger than you can ever be. They’ll never bow to you again.”

  From his cage, Crow croaked a mocking rhyme.

  “The time has come to say begone,

  To all the evil you brought on,

  No more hatred growing here,

  No more people bent in fear

  Wild magic, free and strong,

  Is the rule from now on.”

  The moonlight shuddered – whether from rage or something else entirely, Mup couldn’t tell – and began to withdraw its frosty light.

  “What of me, Majesty?” cried Magda. “Have you no words for me?”

  The moonlight flowed around her as it drained from the vardo. Magda ran after it. Out onto the porch she ran, down the vardo steps, and far out on the grassy plain, lifting from the ground as she did so. But no matter how high she flew, the moon rose higher still, shrinking and retreating, until it was just a coin of distant light far beyond her reach.

  Eventually, Magda’s arms fell to her side, and she drifted back to earth. Her long black shadow came up to meet her as she hit the ground.

  She stood out there a long time, cold and alone, her face turned towards the heedless sky as the moon sailed on without her.

  Mutual Disapproval

  “Magda’s coming back, Doctor Emberly,” said Mup, eyeing the witch as she tramped across the moonlit plain.

  The ghost glanced up. His hands were inside the cage, wrapping Crow’s dislocated wing against his body.

  Crow glared between the bars at his approaching mother. “I could sing the flesh from her bones,” he muttered.

  “Please don’t, Crow.”

  His fierce eyes met Mup’s. “Why not?”

  “Quite aside from how disgusting that would be? If the queen thinks we’re helpless, she might allow Magda bring us to her. If she thinks we’re … we’re…”

  “Capable of singing the flesh from her bones?” suggested Emberly.

  Mup shuddered. “Well, yes. If she thinks we’re capab
le of that, she might disappear in a puff of smoke and we’ll never find her.”

  Crow huffed his agreement.

  Emberly glanced out of the door. Magda was closer now. Her hair crackled with angry lightning. Each furious step sent up sparks.

  “You need to make yourself invisible, Doctor,” warned Mup. “She’s in a terrible mood.”

  The doctor just went back to his task, his face grim, his hands gentle as he knotted the strips of silk scarf that he’d torn up as bandages. “Let her see me.”

  “But, Doctor!” gasped Crow.

  “Let her see me.”

  “She’s almost here!” cried Mup.

  Crow flopped back down onto the floor of his cage. His eyes went glassy. He allowed his head to loll. Mup was very impressed at how ill her friend could make himself appear. She felt the hairs rise on her arms as Magda stalked up the steps. The air in the vardo fizzed with static electricity. The witch brought thunder into the room.

  Startled, Magda froze in the doorway, her black eyes fixed on Doctor Emberly.

  “Who are you?”

  Emberly straightened. “Just a person, madam. Small and alone, doing my best.”

  “Did Crow conjure you?”

  Her son moaned weakly, and Magda stepped forward to frown at him. “Hah,” she breathed. “He is injured, and so he conjured a doctor.” She touched the bars of the cage. “Truly he is his mother’s son. Who would have known it?” She glared at Emberly. “Make him whole again. Or I’ll cage you in lightning for the rest of eternity.”

  “You do not have to threaten me, madam! It is my honour and my duty to heal the sick.”

  “Oh, do shut up.” Magda glared about the vardo. “Where’s the other one, the heir’s child? Still creeping about as a ghost? Plotting and sneering behind my back. Well, no longer.”

  Magda grabbed the pendant and spat a word.

  There was a horrible slamming sensation. Mup’s body and spirit reunited in a flash of glitter. The vardo spun. Mup staggered. She had been too long as a ghost. Her flesh felt heavy as a suit of armour. Her legs couldn’t hold her weight. She crashed to the floor.

  Doctor Emberly fell to his knees at her side.

  Magda loomed above them with cruel satisfaction.

  Over the witch’s shoulder, Mup saw Crow’s head thrust through the bars of his cage, goggle-eyed with concern, trying to get a look at her.

  She waved a clumsy hand: I’m OK.

  Magda slapped her face.

  Emberly roared in outrage, and Magda zapped him with lightning.

  Her hair and clothes seethed the air around her, her teeth were bared, and Mup thought, She’s gone mad! Magda grabbed Mup’s jaw. Her fingers squeezed hard into Mup’s cheeks as she dragged Mup close. Her face was dreadful – dreadful – so sleepless and chalky and wasted.

  Look at her, thought Mup. So angry and alone. The only way to make herself feel better is to beat people up.

  “You think you’re so great,” hissed Magda. “With your sneaking around and your talking to the queen. Well, you don’t know the queen. Whatever she told you, whatever she offered you is nothing but a game. I’ve seen it all before. It’s her way of testing you – for pride and arrogance, for rebelliousness. She’ll offer you the world and she’ll snatch it away again until your head spins. In the end you won’t know if she loves you or hates you, and you’ll do anything – anything – to win her trust.” She pulled Mup closer, her black eyes swallowing the world. “I’ve proved myself to her many times over the years. I’ve given her everything I ever had. You are not better than me.”

  When Mup didn’t reply, Magda flung her away.

  She snarled down at Doctor Emberly. “Fix the boy. I want him fit for purpose by sunrise.”

  She strode out onto the porch, slamming the door behind her. In the window, Mup saw her hesitate. The creature was staring at her, and something in his expression seemed to offend Magda’s pride. “How dare you look at me like that?” she cried. “A hulking shambles like you. A hapless memory! How dare you judge me? Turn your face away.”

  The creature just kept staring. With a roar, Magda lifted her hand, ready to strike him.

  Appalled, Mup scrambled to her feet. “Don’t touch Crow’s dad!”

  But Magda never landed the blow. Instead, she allowed her hand to drift back to her side. She dropped her eyes from the creature’s steady gaze. “I never loved you anyway,” she muttered. “So you have nothing to fear from my touch.” As if she didn’t believe her own words, the witch thrust her hands into her sleeves and moved to the opposite side of the porch. “Drive,” she said.

  The vardo jolted to life as the creature slapped the reins.

  “Let me out of this cage,” hissed Crow, rattling the bars.

  “Do take it easy, dear heart,” gasped Emberly, pulling himself up by the edge of the table. “I… I shouldn’t like to see you damaged any further than you already are.”

  “Lift me out of my body! NOW!”

  “Lift you out of…?” The ghost looked aghast. “My dear boy, I don’t know how to do that!”

  “Whaaaat?”

  Mup gaped at the doctor in horror. “You asked him to only temporarily step into his body!”

  “Well, yes, I had assumed he’d just hop right out again.”

  “He doesn’t know how! Neither of us do! The grey girl did it for us!”

  “Get me out of here!” cawed Crow, battering the iron cage. “Get me out!”

  “Calm down, Crow!”

  “I’m so sorry, dear chap. I truly am.”

  “I can’t believe I put myself back in this prison! And now my mam is going to offer me up to the queen like a bun on a plate.”

  The vardo rattled around them as it picked up speed. Mup paced to and fro, clutching her head.

  “I need to get a message to Mam,” she muttered. “I need to let her know where we are. If only I could touch the ground, I’m sure I’d be able to signal her, or leave a sign or something…” She pressed her face to the glass of the door. The mountains were looming fast, eating the sky at the horizon. “Do you recognize this landscape, Doctor Emberly? If you recognize it, you could zoom back to the palace and tell Dad and he…” She turned to the doctor, then hesitated at his ghastly expression. “You don’t look well, Doctor Emberly.”

  “I don’t feel well.” The ghost slumped onto the chair. His face turned a very strange colour. “It feels like someone is using me as a stepladder, to be honest.”

  “Pardon?”

  “As if a million geese were walking on my grave.”

  “What?”

  The doctor clutched his ghostly chest. “Oh, my,” he said. “That’s rather an awful sensation… Is it possible, do you think, for one to unravel like a ball of wool?” Mup went to help him, but before she could even so much as take the doctor’s hand, his troubled face cleared. He gave the most delighted smile, and addressed himself to the far wall. “My dear girl,” he cried. “It’s you!”

  Just as Mup thought the poor ghost had entirely lost his mind, Naomi stepped from the bookshelves. “Doctor,” she whispered apologetically, “I hope I haven’t caused you any discomfort…”

  “You followed me,” he beamed.

  Naomi nodded tenderly at him. “As surely as if you’d laid a thread down to guide me through the labyrinth of the dead.”

  Mup ran to the witch and hugged her. Without hesitation, the witch hugged her back.

  “How’s the grey girl, Naomi?”

  Naomi shook her head. “I do not know for certain. She seemed to revive somewhat when I laid her in the oubliette. But she insisted that I leave before I saw any proper sign of improvement to her condition. It was she who insisted I venture onto the pathways of the dead. She told me how to track you, Doctor, how to follow the thread of light that stretches between you and your –” Naomi blushed as if mentioning something embarrassing – “your bones…” she murmured.

  Doctor Emberly’s cheeks flushed a gentle pink.
/>   The witch looked away with a flustered smile.

  Goodness, thought Mup with a blast of understanding. Naomi is in love with Doctor Emberly!

  Obviously Crow thought the same. “This is no time for romance!” he cawed. “We’re hurtling to our doom!”

  The doctor laughed, startled. “Romance? Between Miss Naomi and I? Ha ha. Why, not at all! Miss Naomi and I could never begin to … it’s entirely impossible that we…” He met Naomi’s eyes. His smile fell away. Mup saw him realize the truth.

  “Oh, my dear,” whispered Doctor Emberly. “My dear… You must know I could never…”

  “Of course not,” whispered Naomi. “Never.”

  The vardo jolted. In the porch, Magda rose to her feet. The wind whipped her cloak and hair, darkening the small room with flickering storm light. Mountains filled the sky. The witch’s face was set in determination as she looked up and up to their summit.

  Naomi crept forward. “Magda,” she breathed, half in hatred, mostly in fear.

  To Mup’s horror, Magda turned, as if hearing her name. The occupants of the tiny space recoiled. Magda’s expression did not change, she just tilted her head, cat-like, as she scanned the interior through the multi-coloured panes of the window. Over her shoulder the mountains grew and grew, casting their shadow into the tiny home.

  Magda opened the door. Wind blew back hair and clothes and feathers. China rattled, curtains blew. Magda’s hair and cloak writhed in the doorway. Her face was filled with hope and triumph.

  “Sister,” she said to Naomi. “Our mother sent you to guide me.”

  Outside the whole world was stone, the steep, grey slopes of the mountain coming up to meet the little wagon. Dust rose in harsh clouds as the tornado horses lightly touched ground. Gravel flew from beneath the wooden wheels. The vardo rattled to a grating halt.

  In the sudden silence, Magda stepped into the vardo. She seemed to recognize Naomi’s face and her expression became less certain. “You are one of the nameless,” she said. “Yes. I know you. You are the one who is always being punished. The one who after ten full years of service has not even earned a name.”