by K.N. Lee
“Oh,” she said. “It will take some getting used to. I can see that. For both of us.”
Fritz grinned in the corner. And it was every bit as hard a smile as Mathilde had ever seen. Every pain, every loss they had felt all rolled into one justified spell. Defense. Protector.
Transformation.
On deck, the bell clanged, It was time to disembark.
Still meeting the hostile gaze of the enraged cat, Mathilde Shawsman spoke with calm elegance. After all, he deserves far worse. “There is no way to escape the spell except through my rules. If you want your old life back, if you want to be free, stop howling and follow me.”
Mathilde picked up her suitcase, her hat, and whispered the spells of camouflage and quiet. They stepped out onto the busy deck. Other passengers bumped into them as everyone moved to get off the ship.
“Vahagn,” she said pointing to a distant building that sat along the dock.
The Exchange. The central holding place of all merchants’ supplies, loading and unloading. “Vahagn.” she whispered and magic obeyed.
The nearest corner of the brick building started to smoke and then rapidly went up in flames. Alarm bells sounded, screeching across the port. Within moments, every Hollyoaken hand on the wharf ran for buckets. Valuable, priceless, common—it didn’t matter. Money burned as they hurried to stop the fire. Supplies needed in times of war, promises that kept alliances silent, with each passing second, fortunes turned into ash. Screams echoed across the water as sirens blared, calling all hands to the emergency that threatened to consume the whole structure of storage rooms.
No one saw the young woman, or the boy walk away from the boat and into the shadows of the city’s twisting alleyways.
Or the sulking cat that followed after them, ears back—defiant.
12
Homecoming Blues
Together, the three of them entered the warren of cobbled streets and graveled byways that formed the heart of Saint Gillens, the main port of Hollyoaks.
Clouds across the moon blanketed the city and surrounding countryside in a fog so deep that Mathilde could barely see three steps in front of where they walked. A light coat of mist covered their heads and coats. A half-a-block behind them, she could hear the captain yowling.
No doubt, everyone could for miles.
Fritz still had that hard grin. The one that said I really don’t care if he lives or dies. “You might want to rethink that noise, cat,” he said, “Dogs aren’t your friends. Not anymore.”
The boy called back down the alleyway, “Ain’t nothin’ sadder than a soggy cat,” Looking at his sister, Fritz drawled just like Edgar, “Bless his little heart.” He rolled his eyes at the straggler’s stubbornness.
“We’ve got bigger concerns than a cat with anger issues,” Mathilde quipped back.
The two new arrivals held hands as they dodged the slime that formed in the puddles and the fog. “Careful,” she pulled back on his arm just in time to avoid an alarming pothole. “Turns out, this city is as slippery as the people who live in it.”
Above their heads, white-washed houses towered, their wide, wooden beams exposed like skeleton ribs. “Though we walk through the shadow of death,” Mathilde quoted an old saying.
“We will fear no evil,” Fritz finished. “I never do, as long as I have you, Mattie.” He tried to be brave, acting his way through the fear. But not once did he release her hand from his grip.
Mathilde didn’t mind. She was glad of his touch. Having one person in the world that she completely trusted formed the foundation of her own courage.
“Stay strong, brother,” she whispered as they huddled under the eaves of a closed storefront. “We can do this. I promise: we will see them again.”
He looked up at her, and nodded once.
They continued on down the street, and the next, and the next. Mathilde pretended not to notice Fritz wiping away his tears as they trudged through town.
She knew the general layout of the port city. Transportation determined placement. Trains stayed near the ports, loading and unloading supplies. From the heart of the city, all train tracks ran to the same spot.
They followed that path, careful to stick to the shadows.
The trainyard was to the north, on the edge of the coast. From there, supplies could be sent to the northern mountains or anywhere else in Hollyoaks. If Mama gets placed on the trains at the hub, the Hollyoaken government could send her to any city in the land. Finding her after that would be impossible.
So speed was their only option.
Captain Richaron wandered behind the two of them now, mewling his displeasure once in a while. Mathilde ignored him. The fog turned her around until her head spun. I need to get my bearings. That’s first.
Climbing up the extendable ladder on the side of a brick apartment building, she and her brother reached the top without incident. And from that vantage point, they could see the whole city.
“There,” she pointed, “That’s where they will be. If our family is still with the supplies, on their way to the central hub, to the dea—to the trains,” she pointed to the lines of track that met in the middle of a cluster of smoke-stacked buildings. Clouds covered the sky, but black clouds of ash and filth lingered around the train station. That place was a stain on the land and the sky.
“That’s where we have to go.”
“If Shaeol burped pure evil, that’s exactly what it would look like,” Fritz whispered. That alarmed reluctance was the wisest thing about her little brother. No one in their right mind went to that miserable waystation. Not even the citizens of Hollyoaks, I bet. Money would be the only motivation.
A poor one at that.
“Captain, the cat,” Mathilde tried to call to the yowling creature. “Oh, bother… what should we call him?” She wondered out loud. “Captain?”
“Or Jett?” her brother suggested, “Because his shriveled heart is as black as his fur?” Fritz was being rude. But it was still true. The sourness of the man was not tempered by the spell. An unhappy man made a grumpy cat.
Clambering back down the ladder, Mathilde was unsurprised to see Captain sitting on a trash bin nearby, licking his front paw.
She walked past the creature before she saw the blood on his leg.
Her eyes flew wide in concern. “You’re injured? Already?” It shouldn’t have startled her—the realization that a man so capable and determined could be hurt. Magic didn’t protect the cat from the consequences of being overlooked. And little. Maybe he would learn humility? Or kindness. Or the way the vulnerable feel: constantly afraid.
Captain bristled at her concern, very much offended by her notice.
“Sorry,” Mathilde replied, at first. “I was just trying to help.”
She began to walk away, towards the distant train yards, but then reconsidered. Marching back to where the scowling cat sat, Mathilde met him stare for stare.
“Now listen here,” she said, returning glare for glare with the yellow-eyed tiny monster.
He hissed.
“We are going,” she insisted. “Right now. You are coming with us. You have a spell to break, don’t you? Or is this the life you choose? Are you going to be a cat forever, Captain?” Mathilde’s face was nose to nose with the black cat.
He did not back down. Neither did she.
“I know you don’t like me. But you are going to help me save my mother and my brother. You. Are. Going. To help.” He bristled at her command, rebelling, defiant.
“You must. At least, you owe me that.”
With his sharp claws, he could have struck her. Captain was her prisoner. It was her magic that held him bound. Like a statue he held still, a growl thundering low in his chest. Like he was a real cat.
“What if it was your family, Captain? What would you do?” she asked.
He blinked.
And then he looked away, pretending disinterest. Focused on applying his tongue to the blood on his foreleg, the cat cleaned his injury. Math
ilde ripped off a bit of her underskirt and wrapped the deep cut. Tying off a knot to keep the bandage in place, Mathilde scooped up the distracted animal.
Placing the cat on her shoulder, she nodded to her brother. “Miles to go before we sleep,” she murmured.
Fritz took her offered hand and together, they melted into the shadows.
Two hours later, Captain fell asleep on her shoulder.
Mathilde held the heavy black cat in her arms and carried him the rest of the night.
Fritz was slowing as well. Soon exhaustion claimed them all.
Three blocks from the heart of the train station, Mathilde found an unlocked car. All of them piled in to sleep.
Mathilde didn’t. Not even a blink or two. There was danger all around. And she knew no one in Hollyoaks who could rescue them if they were caught. Everyone she grew up with, every face she had ever trusted, they all knew exactly who her family was. Every door was closed to their knock.
I am vidaya. There is no help coming.
While her brother slept, she spent a few hours reading under the light of a streetlamp. It wasn’t much, but with her father’s spectacles, the spell book provided its own illumination.
Melchen and the Demons of Fire, that was the legend the spellbook revealed. The old story swallowed her imagination whole. As she read the fight between the vidartan priest and the disembodied horde of rage, Mathilde shook from fear and suspense. The spellbook meant that the story for her. For me.
Rage isn’t the way.
In the ancient battle, Melchen embraced the rage. One by one, he consumed the demons who stood against him. With vidartan power, he extinguished their hatred, decimating their army, ending the war.
People gathered from all around, celebrating his victory against the demons. They had burned more than a quarter of the farmland before he defeated them.
In the lenses of her father’s glasses, Mathilde saw it all: the battle, the victory. Even the celebration afterwards while crowds of grateful people cheered Melchen. For those days when they were grateful that vidaya lived among them—when the people of Hollyoaks were kind.
Clearly long, long ago.
With the view provide by her glasses, Mathilde also saw how Melchen suffered from the rage and hatred that demonic fury dumped into his heartfire. She saw him fight to balance the hate. Mathilde watched Melchen grapple for his own sanity, long after the adoring crowds had turned away.
Until the only one who stayed by him was Malakhian. And then one night Malakhian vanished. Crazed with pain and his inner demons, Melchen the Just searched the world looking for—
“Mattie?” Fritz called, sleepily. “Where are we, achut?”
“We are almost there, levav. You just needed to rest.” Putting away the glasses and the spellbook in his backpack, Mathilde hugged him.
Fritz yawned. Captain yawned.
“Up and at ‘em. Let’s go,” she encouraged them. “Quicker we find them, the faster you are free, Captain.”
The cat ignored her.
Jumping out the open car door, Captain disappeared into the foggy gloom that accompanied the coming sunrise.
It never stopped being foggy this close to the ocean, this close to the coast where I used to live. It was the air of her home. At least the sky still loves me, Mathilde smiled as brilliant colors lit the eastern horizon.
This is gonna work.
“Look Away,” she whispered to the magic, cloaking her brother and her own steps. Mathilde and Fritz headed into the train station.
Ghosts, that was all that people saw, if they even registered the young woman and the boy. A few uniformed men shook their heads and blinked, peering at their passage. No one looked twice, shrugging off their glimpse of two strangers as figments of daydreams.
They did not stride through the station but neither did they skulk, lurking in the shadows. Mathilde walked up to the ‘Information Desk’ as the placard announced.
She asked no questions.
Holding still, she listened.
“Last wagon almost loaded. How many for this last run, then?” The station attendant asked, noting the numbers on a form.
“Looks to be thirty goods wagons and the five cattle cars, sixty head a piece.” One of the dog soldiers sounded tired and smug. “One last run for the Dogs, am I right?”
“Did you find the Franken forces to be much trouble during their, ermm... stay?” The jowly-faced man laughed at the thought. “Once a Franken surrenders there is no need for even a wolf to guard them. They herd together like cattle. No trouble at all. They’ll say nothing until they reach the ovens. Too late. By then, well… crispy does it.”
Everyone laughed.
Except Mathilde and Fritz, who stood, frozen in place.
Horrified.
Mathilde only grasped some of the conversation. But she understood enough.
Five goods wagons held prisoners. At sixty people a car, that was well over three hundred people about to be transported. It also made her task that much harder. Five cars meant a slim chance of finding Mama and John the first time.
Mathilde held Fritz’s hand tight. He made no sound at all as they backed away from the service desk.
“Let’s find the cars. Come on,” she whispered.
Walking up the main thoroughfare, they saw the caboose, the very last car of the train. Car upon car, the connected goods wagons stretched on forever.
It would take hours to find the right train compartment. Hurrying forward, they were ready to try, even if it was impossible.
In two of the nearest train cars, soldiers loaded up paintings and locked boxes. Off to the side, an elaborately carved clock sat alone, out of its wrapping, until the intricate gold-inlaid face was secured, wrapped up, and carried into the waiting train.
Not just goods, Mathilde thought. Not just supplies. Treasure. More than she could imagine. Money. Artwork. Statues. Paintings. All of it of the highest quality, exquisite, precious. Beyond value. Armed to the teeth, the Dogs guarded the cargo like pirates. Plunder.
Stolen. Mathilde could tell just from the way the dogs growled when anyone, friend or stranger, came near.
Fritz accidentally stumbled over a loose rock.
Instantly, five men pointed their rifles at Mathilde’s heart, searching the area, ready to kill at the smallest suspicion.
Stone-white, Fritz’s face lost all color. Mathilde kept a prayer in her heart but even she wilted under the stare of the attack dogs.
Eventually, the soldiers lost interest. They saw no one.
“Hey, there. What do we have here? Kitty, little kitty,” one of the guards laughed.
Mathilde heard a cat yowl, near the soldiers.
She had heard enough of it last night to know: it was Captain. Right in the middle of the armed men, their captain strutted, pleased at the attention. With his yellow eyes, he purred and begged them to pick him up.
Walking in figure eights around one soldier’s boots, Captain kept his yellow eyes locked on Mathilde. He could see them. He knew where they were. Look away was never an effective spell on him. Mathilde didn’t understand why. But it was clear: the cat could see exactly where they stood waiting for the soldiers to walk away.
Captain purred while keeping a death threat in his glare for Mathilde and Fritz.
He would do anything to stop them. That was obvious.
Mathilde’s mind spun as she tried to think of spells to protect them, this close. This fast.
Any moment now, the Captain would be with his soldiers. Cat or not, he would lead the Hollyoaken men directly to the two cloaked vidaya.
Mathilde felt a cold premonition sink over her shoulders, weighing her down.
Fritz looked up at her. He did not speak. Instead, he mouthed the words, “I believe in you.”
One of the soldiers grunted. That was all the warning they had.
“Damn cat. Who needs such a filthy animal?” He snarled as his boot hit Captain in the head and flung his scrawny body across the yard
.
Fritz yelped in surprise at the brutal attack. The cat’s body fell on the train tracks. Right on the railroad ties. Under the wheel of the train car.
Captain didn’t move.
Because of the crowd of soldiers, Mathilde didn’t see any more of his tiny form. Over one man’s shoulder, she could see the cat’s eye blinking. He was alive, but not for long.
“Who’s there?” the dogs of war called out, fanning around Mathilde and Fritz. They couldn’t see either of them. But they heard her little brother’s surprise. They were suspicious by training. Caution—that was a trait that kept them alive.
“Who’s there? I am going to ask one more time before we start shooting.”
Frightened, Fritz looked at his Mattie, his eyes wide, his face pale.
“I love you,” he mouthed. And then he let go of her hand.
Like that, she lost him. Instantly, her little brother appeared to the searching guard dogs.
“Hey, mister,” Fritz stuttered to the five soldiers. “Can you help me?”
“Where’d you come from kid?”
“Hey!”
“It’s like he stepped out of thin air!”
Their surprise was only hostile for a moment. “Where are your parents? Which train are you on?” They asked him detailed questions.
Fritz had no answers.
“I-I am with my parents. I,” He made up something, “I am going on vacation to Austra. We are celebrating Papa’s retirement.”
“Where you from again, kid?” One of the men asked, leaning in.
“From? From Norwava,” he answered. Keeping the accent right, Bertha would have been proud at his disguise.
“What part of the town, did you say?” the same man asked again, eyes narrowing. Mathilde could hear Fritz’s accent slipping. So could all of the men. Fear undid his disguise.
“Are you sure about that? You seem to be more local…?” Another dog asked him as two of the soldiers came from behind Fritz. In one swift movement, they grabbed his arms behind his back, and tore off his hat.
Flaming red hair justified their suspicions. “Vidaya. I thought so.”