by Alex Aster
Tor froze, Melda gasped. A few moments ticked by without anything, and Tor breathed out a sigh of relief.
A voice rang through the house. “I know you’re coming.”
Melda bit at her knuckle. Tor balanced between wanting to run out of the house at full speed and satisfying his curiosity about who had spoken.
“Let’s go,” Engle said, already heading toward the first floor.
Melda and Tor said, “No,” at the same time.
Engle scowled.
They continued upward, not bothering to muffle their steps anymore. When they reached a doorway coated in light, Tor held his candlestick out in front of him, the way he might a sword. They burst inside.
An old woman sat in the corner of the room, enveloped by an enormous armchair. Her body looked like a bag of bones in her loose nightgown, her face sunken down as if her skin had encountered quicksand. Her hair looked like a sickly white bird perched atop her head. She was hunched into a C shape, shoulders at her ears.
“Who are you?” Melda asked.
The woman’s mouth turned into a smile. She was missing most of her teeth—the rest were rotten. “Who am I?” she said. “I am the woman of this house.”
Tor remembered the painting downstairs. “You’re the one in the painting?” he asked, not concealing his surprise.
She nodded.
Engle, who had seen the beautiful woman in the portrait, twisted his face as if he had just smelled something foul. “How long ago was that?”
“Five years, give or take.”
Surely she was confused. If they truly were the same person, then it must have been painted at least fifty years before—not five.
The woman knocked her remaining teeth together, making a vile cracking noise. “I sense your disbelief. Let me tell you what happened.”
She motioned for them to sit, and they did.
“Our village wasn’t always in the Shadows. We always lived near it, but not in it. My husband was the biggest maker of flour in all of Emblem Island. We had parties in the Mill, I wore beautiful gowns made of spider silk.” It was hard for Tor to imagine the tiny, hollowed-out woman at a ball. “My life was perfect,” she said, her voice shaking. “Until it wasn’t.”
“What happened?” Melda asked slowly, her voice soft and encouraging.
“One day, the sun went dark. Ash fell from the sky, like wicked snow. It fell on everything—our houses, our clothes. Little pieces of evil. We should have known what was coming. But our lives were good. No one wanted to leave. So we stayed.
“The next day, I left to get paper at the market. A man was standing in the middle of the town square, covered in thick, dark plaster. It had fallen out of nowhere. He reached toward me, then hardened, one hand outstretched. That afternoon, the sun disappeared and darkness came—it killed our cattle, demolished our crops, poisoned our water. And it kept us from getting help. No one who left the village ever returned.
“In the dark, people turned on one another. Neighbor against neighbor, fighting not for shoes or books or even dobbles, but food. Water. It turned us into our darkest selves. We watched everyone we had ever known drop dead over the course of just a few weeks. And who else to blame but the witch? Her darkness, it’s growing. Eating villages up whole.”
“How did you survive?” Tor asked. He remembered the water at the bar and the food in the kitchen. The old woman must have gathered those recently. But how? And from where?
She laughed then. “Survive? Do you call this surviving?” She pointed a skeletal finger at her sagging face. “Living through darkness hardened my heart, stripped me of life. I should have died.”
Melda walked over and placed her hand over the woman’s. “Where are your children?” she asked gently. She had seen the same painting Tor had, with the two smiling kids—one blond, the other a redhead.
The old woman blinked up at her, eyes sunken down into her face. For a moment, Tor thought she might cry. Then, she smiled.
“I ate them.”
Melda jumped back, hand placed over her heart. “You what?”
“Them, and every other villager left. That’s how I survived. It had its price, of course.” She pointed at her face once more in explanation.
For a moment, they were frozen in place.
Then they slowly backed out of the room and closed the door behind them. As much as Tor wanted to run screaming into the night and leave the mill far behind them, he knew they needed to stay. Melda had to finish their warm clothes. They would probably perish if they attempted to venture deeper into the Shadows without adequate supplies.
“It’s not as if she can outrun us or something,” Melda reasoned. “If she tries something, I can’t imagine we’d have much trouble stopping her.”
Tor shook his head. “I don’t know. Did you get a look at her emblem?” If it was a warrior mark, the old woman might be more capable at killing them than she had looked.
She nodded, wincing. “I did, actually.”
“Well?” Engle looked at her expectantly. “What was it?”
Melda shuddered, her face a peculiar tint of green.
“Cooking,” she said.
The Army of Bones
Once upon a drop of blood, there was a poisoned lake. It was as large as a small sea and smelled of bile and death. Long ago, before it was a lake, it had been a sacred burial ground. Then, the Night Witch flooded its soil, and the bones slipped from the dirt into her gray, putrid water.
With a curl of her finger, the Night Witch commanded the bones to come together, forming beings made up of parts from several different long-gone souls. They made angry, vicious creatures who craved what they did not have—flesh. And their own bones back, so they could be whole once more. The monsters laid at the bottom of the lake, waiting for any hint of life to pass. For only a taste of the living offered any comfort.
Years went by without a kill. The bones stayed submerged for so long, a layer of algae grew over and around them; a flesh of sorts. It made them stronger.
It is said that should a person manage to remove a single bone from the lake, they would be able to brew a potion for unparalleled strength. It is also said that should they fail, the beasts would tear them to pieces, the same way they were once separated from their parts.
The Night Witch alone controls these bonesulkers. To this day, they await her command from the lake’s depths, an army submerged in the shadows.
17
Rotten
The next morning, Tor heard the old woman scurrying down the stairs faster than seemed possible given her thin, crooked legs. He hadn’t slept a wink after hearing her story, even with his door locked.
A spread of breakfast waited for them in the kitchen. Melda and Tor exchanged horrified looks, not wanting to eat anything the old woman had cooked. But their stomachs growled right along with Engle’s, who didn’t seem too bothered by eating food served by a professed child-eater. Besides, there was no one left for the old woman to cook up.
To their knowledge, at least.
The woman cheerfully explained that after the darkness had passed, she had found a hidden food store and a well with drinkable water. After seasons of trying, her land became fertile enough to yield vegetables, though they tasted a bit sour, and a few weeks prior, a traveler who needed a room had in exchange given her his, which provided her with more than enough milk.
It was at the end of this explanation that Engle cried out.
Melda jumped up. “What is it?”
Engle said nothing, but pointed at his curse. Melda paled.
Dark lines had started to sprout out of the dark lips on his wrist, all the way down his forearm, resembling tree roots. It took Tor a moment to realize that those black lines were Engle’s veins.
“This isn’t good,” he said, shaking his head. “Not good at all.”
Engle cradled his arm.
“Curses are leeches.” Melda spoke slowly and softly, like the tone of her voice could make the meaning of her words less frightening. “They suck the life out of their host. Not immediately, but, it’s been days now…”
Melda’s curse had only produced a few tiny lines. Tor’s looked similar to hers. Only Engle had truly started to rot.
They had decided to call it rotting, because that sounded slightly better than dying.
* * *
They planned to leave after breakfast, but a storm rolled in while they ate. Wind howled outside, window shutters clapped against the glass in frightening smacks. Dark clouds circled like a pack of wolves, trapping them in the mill for the time being.
“Go out there, and the forest will eat you right up,” the old woman said. And though her word choice made Tor’s breakfast threaten to come back up, she was right. Leaving before the weather improved would be a mistake.
He looked over at Engle and found him draped over his plate, eyes barely opened. Melda screamed, and they helped him up to his room. In minutes, the curse had spread all the way to his shoulder.
While Engle rested and the dark clouds broke open, Tor spent hours reading the remaining stories, trying to find any clue about where they needed to go next. Trying to read between the lines. He even studied “The Sun and Moon,” though it wasn’t technically a monster myth. And, even though “The Army of Bones” was the most helpful, it was useless, since the map didn’t show a body of water nearby. It didn’t show anything in the Shadows. Desperate, he asked the old woman if there was a lake nearby, but she ignored him, humming as she dusted the same set of yellowed china, over and over. By the end of the afternoon, he had shoved The Book of Cuentos back into his backpack without making any progress.
He went to check up on Engle and found him breathing peacefully, though his curse had crept up to his neck. Not wanting to leave in case Engle’s condition worsened even more, Tor sat on the floor and ended up falling asleep against the bed frame.
When he awoke, the room was plunged in darkness. He blinked once, twice, then jumped up. Part of his mind feared something horrible had happened while he had slept—like that the curse had rotted his friend all over…or, worse, that the old woman had baked Engle into a biscuit.
One look at the bed calmed Tor’s crazed thoughts. Engle was fine. Or, at least, as fine as he could be, given the circumstances.
He slipped out of the room, then knocked on Melda’s door. No response. He guessed at what that meant and made his way downstairs, then outside. The wind and rain had stopped, but the ground was slippery with mud.
At night, the town looked even eerier, the ash-coated buildings hard to see. He walked with his hands out in front of him, feeling around until his eyes adjusted. Even the moon seemed to be shining elsewhere, but candlelight illuminated the clothing shop, helping guide his way. Tor spotted Melda through the window; she was hunched over as she sewed their outfits with the speed of an expert. When he opened the door, she jumped.
Her hand was over her heart. “You scared me,” she said. The fear melted from her face, leaving only surprise. “What are you doing here?”
He sat on the stool beside her. “I’m here to help.”
“Okay,” she said, still looking suspicious. Then she shrugged. “Well, I actually need to get your measurements anyway. I guessed for some of them, but the clothing’s useless if it doesn’t fit right.”
Melda unfurled a tape measure she must have found in the shop. Tor stood with his arms out as she quickly took the measurements, then wrote them down.
“Melda?”
“Yes?”
“I—I wanted to…”
She looked up at him, blue eyes impatient. “Yes?” she repeated.
He sighed. “I wanted to apologize.”
She blinked too many times, then looked down. “What for?”
“I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry you and Engle got dragged into all of this. I’m sorry I put our lives in danger. Engle is up there, dying, and it’s all my fault.” He heard his voice crack and locked his jaw.
Melda put the tape measure down. “It’s okay,” she said. “We all make mistakes. It’s not like you made us touch the curse. It’s my fault for butting in.” She shook her head. “I always do that.”
“No,” Tor said quickly. “Melda, if you hadn’t butted in, I wouldn’t have had any chance at getting rid of the curse. You’re the one who led us to the know-all in the first place.”
She shrugged. “I guess.” There was a moment of quiet. Then, she took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, too.”
His eyebrows pulled together. “For what?”
“The way I acted in class. I always made a point to be the best. To make sure Mrs. Alma thought so. Even after you were nice enough to give me your books… I shouldn’t have done that.”
Tor blinked, taken aback. “Why?”
She breathed out roughly, then twirled her necklace between her fingers. Tor had noticed that she did that when she was nervous. He had watched her do it for years in class, without knowing what the blue pendant held. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel bad. I just—I can’t afford not to do well. I guess I thought I had to be better than you. I mean, your mom’s the Chieftess! How can I compete with that?”
“Not everything’s a competition, Melda.”
She squinted her eyes at him. Not in a mean way, but pensively. “Isn’t it, though? I need to graduate at the top of our class so I can get a great position. Maybe even outside of Estrelle, if the pay is better, so I can help my family.” Her bottom lip trembled, just a little. “My dad, he hurt his back. Who knows how much longer he’ll be able to work in the mines? And when he can’t, I’m all my family has.”
Tor felt terrible. He had never had to worry about his family, beyond making sure they didn’t find out about his swimming. His biggest stressor in life was that he didn’t like his emblem. That worry seemed insignificant compared to Melda’s. He didn’t know what to say. He wished he could help her…
“What if I suggest a new policy to my mom?” Tor said. Melda wiped a tear from her cheek. “Something to help with the cost of your brothers’ medicine or to change your dad’s job?”
Her eyes softened. “You would do that?”
“Of course,” he said. He added nervously, “That is, if I ever see her again.”
Melda surprised him by smiling. “You will, Tor. We’re not going down without a fight.” She used one of her many ribbons to tie back her hair. After nearly a week without seeing a brush, her loose curls had turned into mostly knots. Before she got back to work, she looked at him again. “Which emblem did you wish for?” she asked. “On Eve.”
Tor remembered the judgment in Melda’s eyes when he revealed he’d wished to be rid of his leadership marking. But a lot had happened between then and now. He sensed that this time she would respond more empathetically. “Water-breathing,” he said quietly.
She nodded, looking down at her fabrics. “Makes sense.”
Tor looked surprised.
“Your hair, in class.” Melda shrugged. “It’s always wet. And there’s always sand on your clothes.” She passed him a needle and thread. He followed her sewing movements.
Together, they worked to the whisper of wind hissing through a broken window in the shop, staying up until all three outfits were ready.
* * *
Engle groaned as Tor and Melda entered his room. The curse had traveled to the other arm overnight. It was a ghastly sight, the dark lines tracing where light blue veins typically sat. “How does it look?” he croaked, eyes still closed.
“Not bad,” Tor said, trying not to choke on the lie.
Melda’s mouth hung open in horror, and Tor signaled for her to pull herself together, in case Engle opened his eyes and saw the truth written all over her face. She
quickly composed herself. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I died two days ago.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, smiling. “If you’re already dead, then I guess you won’t want to see our new outfits…”
He opened his eyes so forcefully it seemed he could see right through the door Melda had hidden their newly made clothing behind. Engle broke into a wide grin. “They look amazing!” he said. Melda took the hanger off the door’s hook, then presented it to him. There were four pieces: pants, a sweater, socks, and a cape that looked almost like a coat, but without sleeves.
“I had some help,” Melda said, shooting a small smile in Tor’s direction. Then, her expression became serious again. “Anyway, we need to leave today.” She spread out the map on the end of Engle’s bed.
Engle blinked. “But we don’t know where we’re going.”
He was right. And searching the Shadows blindly could take days.
Days they didn’t have.
“I know,” Melda said. “But we aren’t going to find her sitting here. With any luck, we’ll happen upon the lake from ‘The Army of Bones.’ From there, her castle should be really close by.” Though she sounded optimistic, Tor saw right through her hopeful tone. She was just as worried about Engle as he was.
Tor closed his eyes for a few seconds too long before opening them. He was exhausted. Unsteady. His own curse had begun spreading its way up his arm, carving a trail of burning pain.
He left the room with his new outfit, a knot of anger in his chest. They had gone all this way, figured out all of those tales, for what? To still not have the slightest idea where in the Shadows the Night Witch lived? To possibly die before finding her?
This was his doing, he reminded himself. He and his stupid wish were the reasons why his best friend was in the other room, rotting.
It was all his fault.
Tor kicked the foot of his bed, and the headboard slammed against the wall satisfyingly. His toe throbbed, but he turned and kicked something else—his backpack.