The Case of the Spellbound Child

by Mercedes Lackey

  She nodded, and went out to look for the fire iron to pry the hearthstone up with. She fought hard to maintain her determination, because it was oh, so very tempting to give this up right now and just let things go on as they were.

  The stone came up surprisingly easily, and she levered it over to the side as she remembered it lying when the Dark One had dragged her here.

  And then she was confronted with a problem. There was not one finger end. There were two.

  Both were in the same withered, mummified condition. She hesitated a very long time between them—then firmed up her lips and took both. The other one must have belonged to that girl who had been the Dark One’s slavey before Ellie. Well, she was dead, and taking her finger would neither help nor hurt her.

  She marched straight out the door, down the path, and to the gate, and holding her breath with trepidation, her stomach a tight little ball, she thrust the fist holding the fingers in front of her, closed her eyes, and walked forward.

  She more than half expected to bounce off that invisible fence and land on her bum again. Ten slow, cautious steps later, when she hadn’t done so, she stopped, and slowly opened her eyes.

  She was not only well past the gate, she was well past the lightning-blasted tree.

  She clapped her free hand over her mouth, and indulged herself in a much-muffled whoop of joy.

  Then she ran back into the cot.

  “Did it—” Sam began and saw her face. “It did! Ellie! Tha’ can get help!”

  “Chell! Chell!” she pledged fiercely, and then saw that the others had made the smock Rose had been given into a pack that presumably contained her biscuits and theirs, her own spare shirt, with shoulder straps rigged from the arms of the smock, and the two blankets rolled up tight and secured on top with the strings from the smock collar.

  “Naow run, Ellie!” Robbie said, his eyes overflowing. “Run! The futher tha’ gets, the less like Dark One’ll keep chasin’!”

  “Chell bring back help!” she swore, and then did one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life.

  She closed the door on them.

  She stopped long enough at the baskets of bread for tomorrow to take the loaves she and Rose would have eaten and stuff them into her pack, along with the two boiled eggs, hers and Rose’s, that she had not eaten.

  And then she stopped in the garden just long enough to pick enough strawberries to fill a pocket she made out of the corner of her own smock, to eat as she went. It was a pity she couldn’t take more, but they were only going to end up a sticky, smashed mess if she did.

  She didn’t run, despite Robbie’s orders. Running would lead to tripping and falling. But she did set out with the longest stride she could manage, eating strawberries as she went.

  She had no idea where “home” was from here. But she did remember one thing that Pa had told her. How, if she ever got lost on the moors, she was to walk until she found running water, and follow it downstream. “Water be where folk be,” he’d said. “So follow water.”

  So that was her goal. Find water. Follow the water. Follow it until she found people, and tell them everything she knew. And fortunately, she had proof, of a sort—

  —two chopped-off fingertips.

  * * *

  It was long, long past moonrise when she finally could not go another step. She still hadn’t found running water, but she had found a little rain-pool where she’d gotten a drink and eaten one of her loaves.

  The moon was full, and her eyes were used to the dark. It was a clear night, so she knew she was in no danger of getting rained on, but she felt vulnerable out in the open, so she looked around for some cover.

  It wasn’t much, just some bushes, but she crawled under them and made a nest out of her two blankets. At first, she started awake at every little sound, thinking it was the Dark One that had found her at last, but eventually her exhaustion overcame her, and she fell asleep.

  And she didn’t wake until the sun was high in the sky—and a wild pony was nuzzling her cheek curiously.

  She sat up with a yelp, frightening the pony into flight and immediately tangling her inexpertly braided hair in the branches of the bush she had gone to sleep beneath.

  When she got herself out of that cawtch, she took a long and deep breath, and peered around from within the shelter of the bush. Because the Dark One could be sitting right there, waiting with cruel patience for her to wake up so it could have the pleasure of her terror.

  Nothing.

  Slowly, she crawled out from under the bush, stood up, and looked around.

  For as far as she could see in any direction, there was nothing but the low, rolling hills of the moor, covered in grass and flowers, dotted with bushes, with dark patches that might be groves of trees in the distance. No sign of the Dark One. No sign of any sort of pursuit. The only living thing within sight that wasn’t a plant was the moor pony, standing off in the distance at the edge of a little herd of six more, staring warily at her.

  Her stomach growled. And that decided her actions for the next little while.

  She ate an egg and two loaves, packed up, and considered her options. Last night she’d had the mother-wit to lie down with her feet where she’d been and her head where she’d been going. East, was where she’d been going, and that seemed good enough to her for lack of any other signs.

  She did pause for a long moment to scan the horizon with extreme care, looking for the thin threads of smoke that signaled a hearthfire going. But either the hearthfires out there were not putting out any smoke, or (more likely) there just wasn’t anyone out there.

  Find running water, her Pa reminded her in her head. With a last hitch of the improvised shoulder-straps, she started walking east.

  When Mother had chased them out to forage, Simon had been wild with joy. Who wanted a half a cup of milk and a single piece of dry bread when there were berries and nuts and all sorts of good things to eat out there for the taking? And who wanted to waste time doing boring chores when there were hills to run over and fun things out there to get into?

  He’d begun having second thoughts when all he and Ellie could find was green stuff, and not even cole, but thin, unsatisfying cress and the like. He’d been on the verge of tears when they gave up for the night and lew under a hedge and such disappointing sheep-fodder had been all they had to eat.

  Then he completely recovered his spirits the next day when their hunting went so much better, and he’d practically shouted for joy when they’d found that deserted garden. Everything was good again! They’d come home laden with food, Mother would be proud of them, and they’d have a feast and Mother would stop making them do chores and turn them loose on the moor every day!

  Except, of course, it wasn’t deserted, and that had been the last happy moment he’d had.

  At least through all of the ordeal, Ellie had been there, making sure he got fed and was warm enough, keeping between him and the Dark One. And doing all that work! Baking and sweeping and cleaning and all that other work like a regular slavey! He huddled on his bed, consumed with guilt when he wasn’t crying to go home, because it really was all his fault that they were here.

  But even though the fact that Ellie had said that she was going to try and get help was known to every one of the prisoners, he hadn’t really believed she was going to do that. Not without him, anyway. So as the others packed her clather and the biscuits into Rose’s clean smock, he waited for her to appear with the key to unlock his shackle. Because of course, she was so fitty, she could manage anything, including stealing the key.

  And he watched with open-mouthed disbelief as she shouldered her burden, marched out the door and shut it behind her, and left without him.

  It wasn’t possible! She surely would be right back!

  But she wasn’t. And as the others laid back down, as dizzy and drained from the Dark Sleep as
he was, he remained staring at the now-closed prison door, still in complete disbelief that she had left without him. Wasn’t she supposed to protect him? Now what was he going to do?

  Eventually he found himself starting to slump over, and he gave up: laid himself down on his bed, covered himself, head and all, with his blanket, and began to weep, softly.

  He must have cried himself to sleep, because the next thing he knew, he was jolted awake by a scream of pure rage right beside him.

  Instinctively, he pulled the blanket tighter around himself, trying to hide. Not me! Not me! Not me! I didn’ do anything!

  To no avail, of course. He felt the blanket being ripped off his body and out of his grip. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, trembling in every limb. Felt a pair of cruelly strong hands seize him by the shoulders and lift him into the air, shaking him. “Where is she?” screamed the Dark One, as he tried to avert his eyes from the empty hood where its face should be. “Where is she?”

  “Dunno!” he bleated, the exact truth, since he had no more idea where his sister was than a hen would. “Dunno!”

  The creature shook him until his teeth and the chain on his ankle rattled a fine counterpoint against one another, then threw him back down on his bed.

  It knocked all of the wind out of him, that did, and he lay there struggling to get a breath as it berated Robbie.

  Robbie just repeated what Ellie had told him to say, as the Dark One got angrier and angrier. And just at the moment when Simon was certain the creature was about to strike him, Jess spoke up timidly.

  “Chave made’a mort’a bread,” she whispered. “Really.”

  Deborah spoke up as well. “Cham good at cleanin’.”

  The Dark One whirled and stared at them both. For a moment, Simon held his breath, afraid that it was going to beat them.

  But instead, the Dark One bent down and seized Jess by the wrist, unlocked her manacle, and dragged her out to the hearth. There was a scream of absolute terror and pain, and the Dark One dragged her back in, her fingertip severed as Ellie’s had been. He flung Jess onto Sam’s bed, and went for Deborah.

  Deborah did not scream, but that was because she fainted as soon as the Dark One touched her. In mere moments it had flung her limp body on Sam’s bed too. “Fix them,” the thing snarled, and stalked off to bring back the basket of bread and the broom, which it flung at Colin.

  Then it slammed the door.

  Sam was already working on Deborah’s finger, having dealt with Jess’s. The rest of them stared at each other in stunned silence.

  Robbie recovered first. “Ben, get broom. Bill, take buckets an’ put ’em at t’door. Rest bar Sam, haul back beds fer sweepin’.” And he suited his words to his actions by getting up and pulling the beds belonging to Jess, Deborah, Rose, and Ellie out into the center of the room.

  When all the debris was swept out the door, Jess and Deborah were both awake and Sam had finished bandaging their fingers with some clean rags. That was when the Dark One appeared at the door.

  It looked around the room—as best it could in the gloom—and then down at the buckets. “Tha,” it hissed, pointing at Deborah. “Take buckets an’ foller. Tha—” and it pointed at Jess, “Get t’ makin’ bread.”

  Both scuttled to obey the creature, sniffling into their sleeves. The thing cast another glance around the room, and shut the prison door behind it.

  Simon pushed his bed back where it belonged and went to sit on it, still too terrified to do anything but sniffle as the occasional slow tear born of fear crept down his cheeks. Sam laid himself down flat, looking exhausted. The rest put the room back in order and took to their beds as well.

  As the fear wore off, Simon realized he was dizzy and lightheaded, and that might be because none of them had eaten, even though the basket of bread was sitting right there. So since no one else was apparently thinking of that, he got up and headed for the basket.

  His original intention had been to snatch two or three loaves and take them back to his bed and devour them. But he paused with his hands full of bread and looked around himself, peering through the dimness.

  They’d all been heavily drained by the Dark Sleep. And it hadn’t been easy, cleaning up while dragging those cursed iron chains behind them. With a sigh, he took his loaves to Ben, poking at the boy with his toe until Ben rolled over, and holding out the bread to him to take.

  Only when everyone else was fed did he claim the last of the loaves for himself. He’d curled up on his bed with his treasure in hand when the door opened again and he practically jumped out of his skin.

  But it was Deborah with the two buckets. “Dark One be gone,” she said in a low voice, as if she was afraid it would hear her regardless. “Left door all abroad.”

  “It’s arter Ellie,” Mark said flatly.

  “Nay sar unket,” Robbie retorted. “Dark One don’t know where she go. She moorwise, Simon?”

  “Aye,” he replied, cautiously.

  “So usn’s pray.” Robbie seemed perfectly sincere in this, and Simon, schooled by Mother in daily prayers, abandoned his bread and got on his knees, following Robbie’s example. Deborah just took her share of the bread off her bed and sat down to eat, but Steven and Bill and Lily knelt and bent their heads as well.

  Simon couldn’t think of anything but a wordless plea to a nebulous God that the Dark One not catch his Ellie, and that she find help, but from the way Robbie’s lips were moving silently, he had a very great deal to say to that same nebulous God.

  Jess came in during the middle of this, and with a curious glance at the children praying, dropped down on her bed to pick at the bread waiting for her there.

  “Chell weed garden,” she said quietly. “Dark One got our fingers hid, so no hope of follerin’ Ellie.” She sighed. “Grammar knowed me plants. Us’ns c’an eat a lotta them weeds, an’ Es can fix ’em tasty.”

  That perked Simon up no end.

  “Deb’ra’ll do bread. Chell do other vittles. Dark One don’ stop un, us’ll et good.” There was a quiet defiance in that statement that made Simon wonder what had put courage into all of them? Had it been Ellie? Or had it just been the improvement in their food that Ellie had managed that had given them all twice the strength and heart they’d had when he and Ellie were first captured?

  The Dark One returned for nummet; the door had been left ajar and Simon could see that Jess and Deborah leapt to wait on the creature, bringing it a fresh loaf and a vegetable stew. It reached up to the flitch of bacon hanging from the rafters and cut a rasher, throwing it at Deborah. She caught it without flinching and fried it up. It was impossible to read the damned creature, and it said nothing the entire time it was in the cot, but at least it didn’t hiss any orders at either of them, and when it stalked out again, it also hadn’t struck or otherwise punished anyone.

  So, their nummet was the same as the Dark One’s, without the bacon. Bread and vegetable stew, which was ever so much more satisfying than the raw veg they’d gotten before.

  Everything was quiet and tidy when the Dark One returned again, still empty-handed. Deborah presented the creature with more vegetable stew and bread, and a mess of gooseberries cooked in sugar. It grumbled and hissed under its breath, but once again, meted out no punishment, not even over the extravagant number of loaves Deborah had turned out.

  It went out a third time; Jess ran to the window to watch, and called back over her shoulder after a silent interval.

  “Dark One’s gone. Called up moor pony, like Ellie said, and ’tis gone.” She left the window and joined Deborah at the table, where they were making something. “Reckon it’s give up cotchin’ Ellie.”

  Simon bit his lip in mingled anxiety and hope. Could they be right? Had the thing given up? Ellie must be halfway across the moor by now! Surely it could not be long before she found people and could bring back help and rescue!

 
“’Sa big moor,” Ben said glumly. “Don’t need Dark One huntin’ ’ee t’get inter trouble. They’s fens, mires, wild dogs, storms, breakin’ leg—”

  With every reminder of how dangerous the moor was, the more tears welled up in Simon’s eyes. And when Ben said “breakin’ leg,” he couldn’t bear it anymore; he burst out crying.

  “’Ere!” Robbie barked sharply, catching him by surprise. “Will tha’ blatherin’ an’ blubberin’ ’elp tha’ sister?”

  He sniffed loudly, but it didn’t look as if he was getting any sympathy from anyone. “N-no,” he admitted.

  “Then stop tha’ crewnting,” Robbie ordered. “Tha’ blubbers like a chrisemore.”

  The two girls brought in supper; the usual bread and boiled egg, but also a wonderful surprise. Not the candied carrots that Ellie made, but a half-loaf loaded with candied rhubarb. Simon tucked into it first, greedily, and sucking his fingers free of every sweet little drop. He gathered from what Deborah told the others that the stuff was overtaking the garden in the rear of the cot; evidently the Dark One had no idea it was edible. It was Deborah’s idea to leave a big dish of it waiting for the creature. “Might sweeten its temper,” she said, and went to Sam for another dose of his healing powers.

  The Dark One was still not back by the time the cot was all but completely dark except for the fire left banked for the morning. And so Simon went to sleep in a state of decidedly mixed emotions. Afraid for Ellie. Angry she hadn’t freed him to come with her—he ignored the fact that she didn’t have the key for his chains. She was smart, she should have thought of something! Hope she would bring back rescue. Fear that she would be lost out on the moor and never seen again.

  But riding above everything else . . . the terror of the Dark One.

  12

  NAN was going to be very glad to be off this train. While they were in a First-Class compartment—Alderscroft would never pay for anything less—it was not a Parlor compartment. So the main advantages were some extra padding on the bench seats, no need to actually share the compartment with anyone, and enough room that Suki could move about a bit. The disadvantage was that it was a very hot day, and since this was a First-Class compartment, there were only windows to open on one side, the other side being taken up by the windowless wall on the corridor.