by K.N. Lee
Fritz wasn’t lost. And that was all she could think about, concentrating on that simple fact. Hope still lived. The vidartans would rise again.
“Who do you speak to?” Captain Richaron asked, taking charge in her confusion. “Who’s there? Are there more of y--”
His words ended when the vidartan stopped his mouth. With one word, she focused all of her power on that one man, demanding he bend.
She whispered the spell again, “Tardemah.”
The captain fell to the ground senseless.
Mathilde took a set of keys from the cluttered desk top.
“Look away,” she whispered again, just to be certain.
And then, she looked at her enemy. Richaron. The man who had hurt her more than any other. The leader of the dogs of war.
“Ebrah,” she whispered. Light as a feather, she lifted the senseless man with no effort, walked him out the ruined door. And then she dumped him in the trunk of his truck.
Binding his hands and feet with rope and then connecting the knots, Mathilde thought how all those hours of embroidery practice finally came in handy.
“Levav?” she called to Fritz as she drove the captain’s truck out of the ruined camp. “Can you hear me?”
“Achut?” he spoke again, the magic made his voice ring down a long tunnel.
“Mama and Johan are on the ferry. I’m going after them.” Mathilde thought of every good reason her little brother could not come. “You are almost free. You must stay safe. You need to cross the mountains to a new world. A better life, for all of us. Bertha will take you.”
“Stay here, Fritz.” she said, “I will bring them home.”
But he wouldn’t listen. Alone. Lost without her, he didn’t want to hear all the reasons why she was right. None of that mattered to a ten-year old boy.
“Mattie,” Fritz cried out. “Don’t leave me here. I don’t want to be here without you.” His sorrow amplified as it traveled along the magic.
“Freedom is worth nothing without love, achut, ” he said the same words Papa always used when they got in trouble. When they were wrong, when Mathilde needed to see the differences in her actions. That phrase hit her open heart with more power than ten ammunition explosions. And she felt every bit of truth in them ring across the land. She could not deny the light or the hope in his heart.
Mathilde spoke through the magic the words they both needed to hear,
“Get ready, levav, I am coming. We are going home. We have a job to do.
“We are the vidartans.”
11
Upside Down Trees
Together, they crossed the ocean.
Taking Captain Richaron with them, spellbound, was a risk. Not taking him meant leaving him behind to pursue their every step. He had already proved himself to be dogged. She already lived constantly looking over her shoulder, sleeping with one eye open. Having him free, armed, and with backup?
That was the worst choice.
Using her magic, Mathilde hid him from sight.
“We might need a trained Dog to fetch our family home,” she remarked to Fritz as she stood on deck, looking at the sunset. Her stomach burbled and turned on the pitch of the rough waves.
The choppy ocean hadn’t been kind to either of them on the return voyage. Escaping, they had both known the comfort of their mother and father’s presence. Even when the family was hiding, locked in different compartments, they had never been alone.
This time, they traveled in a cabin. Forged passports proclaimed them two upstanding citizens of Norwava, vacation-bound for the bright and shining cities of Hollyoaks. The finely-made skirts that Bertha had given her, the scarves covering her brilliant red hair, Mathilde only needed their protection when she chose to be seen.
Most days, she didn’t.
Mathilde and Fritz had freedom to roam the ship. But the return ferry’s lower deck was full of wounded dogs, licking their wounds. So they stayed far away from those sour men. So much of what they hoped to accomplish depended on slipping back into Hollyoaks undetected.
Together in their cabin, grateful to have each other, Mattie spent hours telling Fritz newly-discovered legends of the spellbook, and the stories woven into the elaborate threads of the vidartan shirts. There were years of tales hidden in the colors of the strings and symbols. He never grew tired of hearing her begin another story of the ancient people.
Speaking of a world where vidaya were treasure, not trash.
Aboard, both of them were careful not to let slip any hint of their identity. Not once. After spending time in Bertha’s tavern, they knew enough of the different dialects to pass for Norwavan.
But using the Look Away spell was far less taxing.
“You ready?” Mathilde asked her little brother as they looked out across the ocean at the distant lights of the Hollyoaken capital. She might as well have asked, “You ready for the hatred?” Neither of them were. The ocean didn’t care about labels. Waves came, carrying the ship farther from the distant shores of Norwava.
Where we were almost free… she thought sadly. This isn’t the life I chose. Fritz didn’t choose this pain, either.
And yet…
H--V--N sent us this magic for a reason. Arming two children and throwing them into a den of raging lions was murder, any other day. Returning them to a hostile country, inhabited by their old neighbors? God might be crazy. It didn’t matter how long Mathilde had known the citizens of Hollyoaks. All of them would betray her in a heartbeat. Once-friends: that’s what she called them. Not one stood for her family the day that Ethan and Edgar disappeared.
Not one.
Mathilde shivered despite the sun’s warmth on her shoulders. It was insanity to escape from such a treacherous place only to return. It was crazy to sneak into Hollyoaks, inhabited by a people who hated the very sight of vidayan red hair or the heritage their clothes proclaimed…
Without the vidartan magic, everything would be gone. Even Fritz.
Even me.
I can color my red hair brown, but that doesn’t change who I am.
Being vidaya wasn’t a choice.
Mathilde and Fritz clung to each other and to a faint, flickering hope. They held on to the traditions and knowledge of their parents and plunged back into the middle of a dark and hate-filled war.
Mathilde had never let her guard down. Safety was an idea lost in her dreams. When the Hollyoaken police refused to look for her older brothers, when no one searched for two missing boys, that’s when she knew the lives of vidayas were worth nothing.
Hiding became the only choice.
She pulled down on the corners of her scarf, constantly tightening the fabric, careful to cover every strand of the red hair. The color alone proclaimed her lineage for everyone to see. Keeping it hidden was the only way to survive in plain sight.
That was before.
Magic hid more than her clothes and her hair. Mathilde’s heart couldn’t handle the pain of another loss. She hid those feelings, too.
She squeezed Fritz’s hand as he threw up over the rail, steadying his shaking body with her own.
“Almost there, little brother. Almost home.” Mathilde tried to think of something that wasn’t terrifying about sneaking back into the country that had become a living hell. “What do you miss from home?” she asked Fritz, curious, “Food? Drink?”
His vomit didn’t make the conversation any more pleasant. But Fritz welcomed the distraction. His eyes went dreamy as he recalled a childhood treat. “Do you remember the bakery on Orange Avenue? The cross street was always full of bicycles.
“The baker there made the most amazing cookies. Big as salad plates, sugar cookies frosted with cherry almond flavor. Mama,” he paused, gulping down his sorrow and his weak stomach, “Mama took me there on my birthday last year. It was so beautiful, the cookie was covered in flowers and lace frosting.
Mathilde didn’t know the place well. She had never been inside. But the masterfully-decorated lace cookies, those that w
ere displayed in the front windows—everyone knew about those.
“I’ll get you one, Fritz. We’ll celebrate Mama and Johan’s return with a whole tray of those laced flowers cookie. I promise that.”
Fritz nodded solemnly and then sank to his knees beside the railing, green as grass. “Just hang on,” she whispered. “Hang on, levav. We are almost home.”
Home.
Is that what I should call the nation that attacked me? The people whose hatred led to her father’s death, killed her brothers’ futures, and kidnapped her mother? Her fellow citizens. The ruling Shelkan class of Hollyoaks.
Every worship day, they read to each other from their holy word, the Shamant. The stories of their people, their history. The beating heart of their culture, the cradle of their confidence: those words were the fire that burned the vidaya as kindling.
Justification.
Denigration.
Isolation.
Subjugation.
Extermination.
Every step in the cleansing of the trash was justified by scriptures. Quoted on the side of buildings, listed in speeches from the leading politicians—the words of dead men guided an entire people’s decisions. Hollyoaks obeyed the laws of Shamant. They were reasonable people. The trash had to go. Cleansing the villages with the word of the priests of their Shamant. Hollyoaks had no magicians. No longing for wonder. No need for vidayan legends.
The vidaya had no place in their own villages. No rest in their own homes. Forced out, rounded up, the neighborhood Mathilde knew her whole life went silent. Scary quiet.
Running was the only option. Two weeks ago, Papa swore he knew a place in Norwava that would help them, someone he trusted.
That had worked out so well.
A grunt came from under the bed. That would be Captain Richaron. Even touching his skin made Mathilde’s heart race. Hatred. No. Not rage. Finally, she settled on disgust. That was a feeling she could manage without giving into a blinding fury.
Pulling out the edge of the rug, she waited until his face cleared the bed frame. “Some food for you,” she spoke slowly. Denying him the right to disturb her feelings.
Removing his gag, she fed him two rolls and a few sips from her canteen.
Since they had boarded, she had never taken the blindfold off of his eyes.
In fact, she couldn’t bear to look at him. To think of the way her heart pattered, struck by something she had never felt before, when he had first looked at her all those nights ago on a distant dock.
Mathilde squelched that feeling and all the confusion that came with it.
“Captain,” she spoke solemnly to her prisoner. “Where did you send my mother and brother? If you will answer me truly, I’ll see that you are released unharmed at the end of all this.”
He lay there, resisting her words. Passive, angry, he scowled at any questions—an empty man, refusing to help.
“I promise not to hurt you,” she murmured, knowing the magic would bind her to that. Reluctant to give him that much power, Mathilde knew that time was running out. Disembarking and then searching the entire land for any trace of her family meant failure. Her mother and brother would disappear, exactly like Ethan and Edgar. She vowed to Fritz that would not happen.
A promise she had no right to make.
“I can’t afford to wait for you to answer. Unfortunately, Captain, you have to tell me the truth or I’ll have to hurt you to get it. Either way, I will have it. You will not have my mother.”
Mathilde knew he would betray her. She knew it. A man that determined to capture vidaya that he traveled to other lands, just for the purpose? Richaron would not let any of them go. And any word out of his mouth was likely a lie.
Lies. That was all she had ever known from him, anyway. He lied as a smuggler. He lied as a captain… or did he? He said he had to.
Mathilde tried a different tactic. “Back in Norwava you said, you had to. You had to take them. Why? Why do the vidaya have to go to the trains? What do you want with us? What is this really about?”
Untying the handkerchief, Mathilde steeled herself, pulled off the blindfold and met his gaze.
Magnetic. Absolutely as powerful as their first meeting on the dock, so many nights ago, the man’s eyes held her fixed in his focus. Mathilde was too mad, too desperate to blush. This was not a flirtation. This was something else.
Soul- shattering.
He felt it, too. Mathilde saw the bloom of confusion cross his gaze. Troubling a man with a defined mission… making him doubt some of his own core beliefs. Was there room for mercy in his heart?
She did not look away.
“Tell me,” she demanded. “What are they doing with the vidaya? Why are you taking my family to the trains? Where to do the trains go? What waits at the end of the line?”
He felt something, even in a heart so cold. She could tell.
She felt it, too. And it made absolutely no sense. A link? A connection beyond either of their control. But I called no magic? I asked for none of this.
“What kind of terrible dark magic are you doing to me?” he demanded, furious.
Mathilde did not feel any pity at his confusion.
“Me?” she retorted. “I have done nothing.”
“You have. I feel it,” he said, “More of the mind tricks of the trash. More of the lies.”
He snorted his disgust. But he didn’t look away.
Mathilde wasn’t sure if she could, as hurtful as his words were.
“This is not my magic,” she mumbled. “This… whatever it is… This is not me.”
He looked at her again, one eyebrow raised. The captain had something to say, but he hesitated. Watching her face, he measured his words. His eyes softened, just a little.
Then, the ship’s horn sounded. Docking was imminent.
Captain Richaron’s freedom would happen any moment she dropped her guard. Followed immediately by her capture. And Fritz’s imprisonment.
Never. Never, I swear. I couldn’t bear even the thought...
And the hard glint in his eyes turned back to a disinterest in her needs and back to a focus on duty, honor, and the Hollyoaken way.
If she had ever had a chance to reach him, it vanished.
Mathilde sighed.
The silence in the cabin filled with harrowing thoughts of betrayal and lies. There was no way to reach him, no argument to make him see the worth of the vidaya. It was hopeless.
“You can’t say I didn’t try,” she said. “Reason does not work with you.”
She replaced the blindfold over his eyes.
Logic and negotiation would have been the easier way. Taking out her pocket knife, she could see her captive tense when the blade clicked open. He knew the sound. He was ready for pain. He was prepared for torture.
Mathilde cut her fingertip in one swift puncture.
“You won’t help us. Not yet. You won’t see that we are not trash. That this is not a trap. Sooner or later, you’ll realize that this is the truth of it: We are the vidartan. And you are our prisoner.”
Across the small cabin, Fritz nodded at her words.
“For now,” she continued, “...you must learn who we are. You must understand us, if we have any hope of stopping the horror that has stolen our lives.” Mathilde thought about what her options were for a second or two before continuing.
“But I… I cannot trust you to be free. I cannot trust a man like you to not deceive me. I need you to be loyal. I need…” Her words trailed off. Friendship? Trust? Hope? Answers? An end to all this madness? Mathilde couldn’t have said exactly what she needed.
But the magic could.
The spells knew more than she could’ve clearly announced, exactly what she needed.
“Defend. Loyalty. Binding.” Those were the words she focused on as the magic swelled around her.
Leaning forward, Mathilde touched the bound man in the middle of his forehead with the blood on her finger. “Achiezeer,” she murmured. Protector. Gu
ide.
The dog of war began shaking. His hands, his fists, his feet stayed bound, still he trembled with rage and fear. And magic. Each body part shrank. Each bit of him, the magic remade. Defining the man by the words of the priest.
Changing him to the needs of the witch.
Mathilde trusted the magic. Far more than she trusted the captain, blinded by his own prejudice. With her word and will, she held his mortal body. Smaller and smaller, he shrank, until he was only as big as her rib cage. Mathilde couldn’t begin to guess what the spell would do—what would be left of her sworn enemy.
But she did not fear.
She didn’t doubt.
With the faith of her courageous father, Mathilde let the spell free.
She watched in awe.
Nearby, Fritz sat, gobsmacked.
Fine, black hair sprouted all over the remains of the captain’s body. Thickening into a coat. A tail emerged, flicking, swishing, angry in every movement. From a narrow face, two slitted yellow eyes looked up at Mathilde as the bindings fell away, releasing her prisoner into a new form.
A new life.
Surrounded by the discarded black uniform of the dogs of war, a pitch black cat hissed at Mathilde, claws out, back arched, tail straight up.
Mathilde didn’t laugh. She could’ve. But she didn’t.
“Oh,” she said, “I see, Captain. There you are.” Mathilde looked at the furious animal, thinking about the way magic responded to her needs. Fritz said nothing. Magic had turned their enemy into a pet. A ferocious, angry attack cat… certainly that was not part of our plan.
“We are bound together now, you and I,” she finally said. “Until I find my family, until you set them free, you will keep this form.”
A word came to her mind, she had never considered before… familiar. Accomplice. Hostage.
“Whatever it takes to free Mama and Johan. There is no limit to what I will do. No law, I will not break. And I am the only one who can break your enchantment.”
Furious, the black cat’s topaz yellow eyes narrowed. Screeching, it hissed at her, a claw swiping the air near her face.
But he didn’t touch her skin.