Winter, Faerstice

by Kevin Lawler

  They started out of the mine, Anson and Darren carrying the dead witch. She was still bleeding, and the blood coagulated in the sand.

  “Could I get the explosives back?” Will asked Winter.

  “What?” said Winter.

  “The pack. That you’re carrying. Can I get it back?”

  “What? I’m carrying explosives?” asked Winter.

  “No, not all of them,” said Will, “I still have some of them.”

  “Unbelievable,” said Winter.

  “Are you blowed up?”

  “No...?”

  “Then what does it matter?” asked Will. “We were going to blow the mine if it didn’t work out. So...” Will waited, “...can I have them?”

  “No, I’m not giving them to you,” said Winter. She walked along livid and silent. “You punched me in the eye.”

  “Yes. I did. And I’d do it again if I had to do it over. Should I have hugged the mad witch back there?”

  “No,” Winter said, “But that’s different.”

  “How? I thought you were a deadly witch.”

  “But...I’m not deadly!”

  “That much is obvious now. Why don’t you think about that for a minute.”

  Chapter 18

  Winter spat out the saltwater and dogpaddled a little bit closer toward the shore. She had drifted out farther out than she intended. The taste in her mouth was distracting. She had come out to the beach early in the morning to take some time to think for herself. But between the ocean currents and the accidental mouthfuls of saltwater it hadn’t been very peaceful.

  She started for the shore. Winter had gotten up early and was still the last one up that morning. The rest of the ring was already up and making preparations for Reveille’s funeral. Winter had tried to offer them help but they turned her away. Cal didn’t look like she had slept at all that night. Meadow was on the verge of tears. It was hard to talk because everyone’s ears were still ringing. Winter could sense the tension in the room and had decided to “make herself scarce.”

  Winter stopped her freestyle stroke for a moment and tried to reach the bottom with her foot. There. The water was only up to her chest, but that was enough for her to walk awkwardly back the few feet to the shore.

  She walked up to where her clothes and shoes were and picked them up. No towel. Air dry. It was hard getting her shorts on over her wet legs. She carried her shoes on her fingers. This place was roughing it. It would be nice if they had beach chairs. Winter leaned her head to the side to collect her hair and let the water drain out of her ear. A decroded bottle of Captain Morgan’s lay near the treeline.

  They were all supposed to be fasting out of respect for Reveille, and so Winter had not eaten. Her stomach twisted. She tried not to think about it. She had gotten better at ignoring these things since she had met up with her ring. Winter was still wet from the ocean and so she didn’t notice the humidity as much.

  Was this what it was like to feel diminished, she wondered. She certainly didn’t feel diminished. Hungry, sure, maybe even tired. She guessed that was her luck. Get stuck with a pig, then lose him. Winter was even getting to like him.

  It probably wasn’t time for Winter to be back at her bunk yet, so she took an aimless path back from the shore through the palm trees and underbrush. She watched for pokey things on the ground since it was already rougher than she expected on her bare feet. The path she took led her through the grounds where she and Topple had trained. Winter wasn’t sure whether she had meant to, or not, or if she had been drawn there.

  She walked to the center of the clearing and squatted on her hamstrings, playing with a blade of grass. The mad witch had turned out to be a friend. The pig was dead. The ocean had had a soothing effect on her bee stings, but now they were beginning to itch. Agnes was still far away. Everything was a mess. At the very least, she had killed a large bee. Hey, that was a pretty impressive bee. She missed the pig.

  Winter pushed her toes into the sand and stood up. She looked at the level horizon of the clearing around her. She thought she would give it a go. She was curious, and hopeful. And she didn’t know what would happen. Winter threw her arm out in disgust, the way a loafer would throw a playing card. She was ready for nothing to happen.

  To her amazement, a pig appeared. Not her pig, but a shade-black pig instead of a pink and mottled one. He started rooting around. Then he turned and ran toward Winter. Who was this pig? He didn’t look like her pig, did he? Huh?

  “Pig?” she asked.

  Winter peeked in the door.

  “You’re late,” Topple whispered from across the sizeable room. Ipsy was up front, walking and talking about a time she and Reveille had too much to drink.

  “If you think you’re hungover today, from a little bit of spellcasting, you should have been there with us, when we drank, I’m not even exaggerating, AT LEAST a...”

  They seemed like they had started a while ago. Winter felt embarrassed.

  “...Sorry, can everyone hear me OK? My ears are still ringing,” Ipsy asked.

  The funerary room was in a large shack made out of wood collected from the island, and it had a sandy floor. Winter’s feet were bare in her shoes and she could feel the soles rolling across the floor. She walked in to take the empty seat which had been saved for her. The black pig, who had been waiting behind the door, trotted in after her and took his place under her seat. The appearance of the pig drew surprised and anguished looks from her friends, none of whom wanted to interrupt Ipsy. They stared at Winter with their ash-covered faces. Winter just gave them an “I don’t know” look.

  Winter felt guilty to...maybe?...have her pig back. She could sense that it was causing a rising anger in her friends and she didn’t know why. The tension from the morning had not subsided. Bringing the pig seemed to be an offense, almost. It occurred to Winter that she was a replacement, with a replacement familiar. Was it right for her to be here at the funeral? She wondered whether she should go. That would probably be another offense. Winter sat quietly and did her best to be humble and respectful.

  It was hot and muggy. The body of the mad witch, their friend Reveille, rested on a dais of crates at the front. Winter considered whether it was a good idea to have a dead body in the heat. She didn’t think there was much in the way of embalming fluid on the island, but she hadn’t been there for the preparations and didn’t ask questions. The more immediate smell was the smell of six unbathed witches. The animals didn’t help things.

  The other five familiars, six if you count Louisa’s two dogs, were out and about in the cramped room. It was a menagerie and the animals: duck, bird, mongoose, otter, and dogs made the room sound raucous like a pet store. None of them had had a bath lately. The pig sighed from under Winter’s feet, his snout poking out along the ground. Winter wasn’t sure if he had something to sigh about or was just making noise.

  The other five women did not seem happy to be there. Winter guessed that that was to be expected at a funeral. They looked flush from the heat. Winter could hear their stomachs growling. Everyone was covered in bee stings. Winter felt hungover. They must have been hungover, too. The camp had shared their syrupy moonshine with them to celebrate, and after they were tipsy there was a spell contest.

  Louisa reached down the row of chairs to hand a box of ash to Winter. Winter took the box. She looked at the faces of her companions for inspiration, and then she took a big handful and rubbed it through her fingers, letting most of it fall. She ran her fingers down both sides of her face. She couldn’t see the outcome but she preferred to imagine it looked good.

  The body on the dais was carefully prepared to appear less hideous. Reveille had had a difficult time at the end of her life, and her subsequent mercy killing and decomposition had not done her any favors. Someone had put makeup on her face and the thick layers of foundation looked cakey.

  There was a snapshot of Reveille & Meadow arm-in-arm stuck in the front of one of the crates. It showed Reveille as she had been
when she was young and normal, before she went mad. She had a brilliant white smile that was so genuine it made Winter sad. The snapshot fell down over and over, and each time it fell Meadow got up to reset it. Reveille at the end of her life did not look like the snapshot. Was it madness itself that made you ugly or was it all the side effects that did it?

  On the ground by the crates was a pail that had been filled with orange flowers that must have been foraged nearby. Winter didn’t know who had gotten them, but then Meadow started rearranging them whenever she fixed the snapshot, and Winter was pretty sure it was her.

  Cal looked at the spread that had been set up outside. There was a folding table, from who knows where, that had been placed against the side of the shack where the ceremony was held. The most junior members of her ring, Ipsy and Winter, were there eating.

  The outlying shack was surrounded by trees. An undiscovered variant of Kigelia that must have come here long ago. Dried and roasted, the sausage-like fruit was safe to eat. From the foliage beneath the trees came a constant buzz of insects, the island cricket which Cal had seen on a few occasions but not yet made the time to study. Cal felt the breeze cutting through the trees. There hadn’t been any movement of the air inside.

  If Oskar’s suspicion was right about the plants Violet was gathering, then Agnes had chosen a foul course indeed. But there was slim evidence, and it didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be right because it didn’t fit what Cal knew about Agnes, and Agnes was vain if nothing else.

  Cal waited for Ipsy and Winter to collect their food before she approached the table. Baking was an important element of any witch funeral, and her girls had done an admirable job at it, though the signs of their circumstances were still plain: the bowls were terrible, the forks they had been given were quite bent, and despite the proliferation of chickens on the island, noone had been able to secure an egg. However, Mac n’ Cheese it was. And flavored off-brand jello even. So the miners had not been too stingy with their supplies.

  Ipsy was chewing with her mouth open and Winter was telling her how good the food tasted. The responsibility weighed on Cal. She had recurring premonitions that showed all of them dying. It had become something she lived with. It was having a derealizing effect on her. Reality seemed fake to her. Processing Reveille’s death made everything seem real again, but now she could see how well reality was matching up to her premonitions. In her premonitions, Ipsy died, Winter died, they all died. It was just the way it was, and Cal had no reason to doubt what she saw. She kept this to herself, but it seemed very likely they were all going to die.

  Cal calmed herself with the quote she thought of in times like these.

  Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

  Winter took a bite from a plate of eggless cookies, and then looked sheepishly for a place to hide the cookie, which must not have met her standards. Ipsy was a cavalier snot, but Winter Cal felt bad for, who at least had good intentions at heart. The other girls looked at her as a replacement. This lacked the perspective of experience. To Cal they were all replacements. More worrisome was the appearance of Winter’s new pet, which it was assumed, for now, to have been recruited from among the pigs on the island. How that may have transpired was not yet clear. In the best case, Winter was crazy.

  Cal felt very much like seeing Oskar, and it did not take much for her to come up with a believable excuse.

  Oskar knelt down and grabbed the pig by the snout. He had his hands around the snout’s bottom with his fingers, peeling down the underlip. The pig’s teeth showed back to the molars, and the pig wrestled gently against Oskar.

  “Yes,” Oskar said to Winter, “I thought I saw something extraordinary in him. This does seem to be the very same pig. I believe you. In fact I think I’ve heard of this pig before.” Oskar stood and wiped his hands on his pants.

  “Are you serious?” asked Phil. Oskar’s court was watching Oskar and the pig in the middle of the hall.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “No,” said Phil, “Is it really?”

  “I think so,” said Oskar, “I have heard of this one. The immortal pig, Sæhrímnir. His reappearance is no accident. The gods would roast him each night for their feasting, and in the morning Sæhrímnir would reappear. So the story goes.”

  Oskar stepped back from the pig to look at him. Winter looked at the pig, too. He seemed pretty normal. He didn’t look like he had special powers.

  “But...why is he all dark now?” Winter asked. The once pink and mottled pig was now triple midnight.

  “Well, if you came back to life, you’d hope to look as good. Nobody said his appearance never changed. He’s just a little singed, that’s all. Bigger, maybe, too. A truly magnificent animal. You know, if the gods never tired of him he must be excellent eating.”

  “No, I don’t...” Winter started.

  “Think about it, there’s only one way to test. If he comes back after a dinner, that’s the only way to be sure. And if he doesn’t, well, then you can be certain this was just a normal, delicious ham.”

  The pig ran in a circle in the middle of the hall.

  “I’m not going to kill him just to make a dinner!” Winter said.

  “Are you absolutely sure you won’t cook this beast?” asked Oskar.

  “You shouldn’t eat it,” said Darren, “A familiar back from the dead? That’s an abomination. We don’t suffer them to live.”

  “Oh, Darren, come off it,” said Oskar.

  “No, it’s wrong,” said Darren.

  Darren had the ear of some of the witches. Now that the identity had been confirmed, Winter felt guilty that her pig was back, but that Reveille wasn’t coming back. The ambiguity of the pig had given her cover. Now that his identity was known for sure, Winter could feel her friends resenting her for it conclusively.

  “Well, what are you going to do?” asked Phil, “Kill it? It will just come back.”

  “I don’t know,” said Darren, “We’d figure something out. Go look it up in one of your books, brainiac. You don’t eat abominations. They’re unclean.”

  Reveille’s shroud lay atop a pyramid of branches that had been prepared for the purpose. The moon was full above her and in the dark Winter could see the ash-streaked faces of her friends peering back. Meadow had grieved near the body all day, and her face was smudged far beyond the others.

  There had been some disagreement over how the ceremony was supposed to proceed—it didn’t seem like they remembered all of it—but one thing they agreed on: it was up to the newest witch in the ring to light the pyre, which meant Winter. No, she couldn’t use a torch. It had to be magic, the very kind Winter had trouble with.

  “Are you sure I can’t put some lit paper under it?” Winter asked.

  “No,” Topple, Meadow, and Louisa said to her together under their collective breath.

  “OK,” said Winter. She already knew the answer. But she had bought time to gather herself. It was time to perform. She wiggled the fingers of her hands and brought them up so she could see her palms. It was a silly motion for a funeral, but it resembled fire, and she tried to do it as solemnly as she could. Nothing happened, which they must have expected for the first time, since they didn’t say anything. Topple folded her lips inward and bit down but didn’t say anything.

  Winter shook her arms out and popped her neck to loosen up. She tried again, wiggling her fingers and bringing her hands up, this time staring intently at the piled branches, as if she could muster the flame from sheer force of will. The pile did not catch, but it sparked and popped, which Winter viewed as a sign of progress. If they were patient with her, she could probably get it.

  Winter paused and took two deep breaths. One. Two. It was kind of interesting to be the center of attention. She raised her hands again, calmer this time, and did her best to think burn-y thoughts. The section of wood under Reveille’s shroud-wrapped foot ignited, and the flames to
uched the bottom of the fabric. Black smoke blotted out a small section of the night. Then the flame died. The pyre was still, and the smoke cleared. A scent of burnt foot filled the air. Winter reflected on Reveille’s bathing habits in the final days of her life.

  Topple had had enough. Winter hadn’t expected her to cut in so soon. Topple stepped forward and made room. Then she put her hands low as if lifting heavy grocery bags and brought her fingers up towards the sky. There wasn’t much wiggling. But the top of the pyramid caught in a steady, low flame, like the top of a kitchen range. Soon the entire pyre caught, and the flames licked up around the shroud. The smoke was billowing in earnest now. There was nothing left for Winter to do. Topple turned and walked off. Meadow, who had been at the bottom of the pyre, had to step back from the flames. Cal stood with her arms crossed.

  “The food,” Cal said. They had brought the food with them and it was supposed to go into the pyre. Winter had to dump the heavy bowl of Mac n’ Cheese near the bottom, and the loose macaroni noodles covered the wood and the ground below it. The plate of eggless cookies was nearly all there still, and Louisa tossed them high through the bottom of the flame.

  “I guess nobody liked these,” she said.

  “Alright, gather her belongings,” Cal said. They were supposed to burn her possessions, too. Reveille did not have much when she died. The bulk of her belongings she had left behind the shed, but they had to keep those. Cal said it would be OK, and that sometimes there were exceptions to tradition. Meadow had her belongings. Reveille had a popsicle stick with a joke on it. “WHAT DID MR. & MRS. HAMBURGER NAME THEIR DAUGHTER? PATTY.” She had a chapstick with a bite out of it. She had a bow for her hair that she couldn’t use. She had a black plastic ring with a spider on it. She had a rubber grip that may have come from some equipment in the mine. Meadow doled out these things and they were lobbed into the growing fire. She took took the snapshot of Reveille and her and slipped it in-between two untouched logs where the flame would catch later. Cal saw this and pulled it out.