A Curse of Ash and Embers

by Jo Spurrier

  ‘A big murdering doll with horns that could skewer a cart-horse, you mean,’ I said.

  She chuckled. ‘If you like. Hop in. Sunlight’s wasting.’

  The water was cold, even after being warmed by the sun. When I stepped in, I couldn’t keep from gasping at the frigid chill of it. I couldn’t imagine bathing down here at the crack of dawn.

  ‘It’s not so bad once you get used to it,’ Aleida said.

  Or maybe we could buy a tin bath at the general store. I’d even spend my own money on it — once I had some, that is. I’d have to fetch some more plates and cups and so on for the cottage soon, anyway. ‘Who made the monsters? Gyssha?’

  ‘Who else? Some people sew beside the fire at night, or knit socks or blanket squares. Gyssha made monsters.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘For defence. Her own personal army. There’s probably hundreds of them out there.’

  It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  I held my breath and ducked under the water to wet my hair. I came up again with another question. ‘What if that fellow in black tries to take it from you?’

  ‘He’d have to fight me for it. But he wouldn’t, he’d just take another one, or two, and use them to keep it occupied. It’d be harder for him than it was for me, because I’m Gyssha’s kin and he isn’t, but he could do it. Probably already is.’ She was leaning back on one hand and staring out at the forest with her blanket and skirt wrapped tight around her, as though she was sitting in a freezing wind instead of the warm sun.

  ‘May I ask you something?’ I said.

  She laughed. ‘Dee, you’ve been doing nothing but. But sure. Keep going.’

  She had a point, there were any number of questions bouncing around in my head. ‘Why did you come back? Melly Sanford said you ran away years ago, and from what I hear of Old Miss Blackbone, I can understand why. But why did you come back?’

  ‘Someone had to put an end to it all,’ Aleida said. Her voice had changed, the laughter of a moment ago gone, leaving her sounding flat and distant. ‘And it was only two years ago that I left. Not all that long, though I can see it would seem that way to young Melly.’ She shook her head then, and raked her hair back from her face. ‘No, ask me something else.’

  Her words had an air of command; at least, I didn’t dare take it otherwise. I remembered what Kian had said, about her poisoning a man in the tavern in Lilsfield, and for a moment I thought of asking her about that, but good sense stopped me. ‘Who wrote the letter that brought me here?’ I asked instead.

  ‘I can’t answer that one either, though I mean to find out. Got another one?’

  ‘What are you going to do about these beasts? And the black rider?’

  She sighed. ‘I’m working on it, Dee.’

  ‘But are you strong enough?’

  She turned to me, and I immediately worried I’d been too impertinent. ‘Let’s hope so.’

  ‘If, if I may, miss . . . what happened to you? I know you’re ill, but if you can’t heal yourself and a doctor can’t help—’

  ‘I’m not ill,’ she said. ‘I’m cursed. Look, I confronted Gyssha, and we fought. She lost. But we witches have a lot of power bound up in us, Elodie, in blood and bone and breath. Power is never created or destroyed, so when Gyssha died it had to go somewhere. She turned it into a curse — a death-curse. She put all she had into it. Well, that and the fact that she kind of pummelled me before it got that far.’

  ‘And is that’s why you’re so weak and ill?’

  She nodded.

  I decided I was as clean as cold water and soap was going to get me. I clambered out of the water, wringing out my hair. ‘I’m all done.’

  ‘All right,’ she said with a nod, and heaved herself up.

  I knew it would be rude to stare, but I couldn’t keep myself from watching from the corner of my eye. Beneath the blanket she was wearing only a shift of linen, dyed black, with a leather belt over it to hold the ugly wand. Setting belt and wand aside, she pulled the shift off over her head and left it on the rocks before wading out into the water.

  I dried myself quickly with my old shift before pulling on my new one, and set to untangling my hair with my rather toothless old comb. I kept watching the hills while Aleida soaped and rinsed her hair, and I wondered what the day was like back home, if the little ones were still asking about me, and if Lucette had lost her temper yet. I wondered if Maisie’s tooth had finally come through, and if Jeb had found the little wooden horse he’d lost before I left.

  ‘Elodie?’ Aleida said quietly from the stream.

  I realised there were tears on my cheeks, and I hurriedly dashed them away, blinking my eyes to clear them. ‘I’m sorry, miss.’

  ‘Dee, you have to stop apologising when you haven’t done anything wrong. What’s the matter?’

  I drew a breath, trying to steady myself. ‘I just miss my family. My little brothers and sisters.’

  ‘Ah. It must have been hard to leave them behind.’

  Something the black rider had said was pressing on my mind, brought up by her comment about kin a moment ago. ‘Miss?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Was Gyssha really your mother?’

  She burst out laughing at that, and I felt myself flush.

  ‘Good grief, no.’

  ‘But the rider said—’

  She didn’t let me finish. ‘Ah, I see. No, that’s what we call the ones who teach us. She was my mother in the craft, I was her daughter. That makes us kin in our world, I have her last name, after all.’

  ‘So . . . do you have another family, somewhere?’

  She gave me a narrow-eyed glance. ‘Nosy today, aren’t we?’

  My flush deepened. ‘Sorry, miss.’

  Aleida ducked to rinse her hair. When she emerged, wiping water from her face, she shrugged. ‘When I left Gyssha, I went to see if I could find my mother and my sisters. But they were gone, and no one could tell me where.’

  ‘Maybe they got married,’ I suggested.

  Aleida gave a humourless smile. ‘Oh, I doubt it. My family wasn’t the marrying sort. My mother was an alley-cat, you see, and she expected her daughters to follow her trade.’

  I felt myself frowning. ‘An alley-cat? What’s that?’

  Aleida looked across at me. ‘A whore, sweetling.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, and looked down at my interlaced fingers, thinking how I must look like an idiot for not knowing what she meant. The heat on my cheeks made me think of Lem, and how he would have crowed with glee over something like this. Not knowing meant he could berate me for being stupid but if I had understood the word he would have shouted at me for being so filthy as to know such a disgusting thing. ‘My stepfather used to call me those kinds of names, before Ma threw a fit and made him stop.’ It was one of the few times she’d stood up for me against him. It had surprised him so much that he’d obeyed. He did love her, deep down, I thought. It was just me he couldn’t stand.

  ‘And he’s the reason you don’t want to go home, even though you miss your little sibs?’

  I nodded in silence.

  ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’ Aleida said.

  ‘Oh, Lord and Lady, no!’ I blurted out, the flush creeping back. ‘It’s nothing like that! He just . . . he hates me, because I’m not his, you see. Everything that goes wrong is my fault, everything I do is bad, and I’m useless and stupid and lazy.’

  ‘Oh,’ Aleida said. ‘One of those.’

  I glanced up to find her looking at me thoughtfully, and had the immediate fear that she didn’t believe me. ‘I’m really not pregnant. I, I couldn’t be.’

  ‘Oh, I believe you. I’d know if you lied to me. But you know, if it were something like that, I could do something about it. Something about him.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s not that, I swear. He’s just — look, you know how some beasts are just bad-tempered? They’ll step on your foot if you get near them, or make their tail all mucky so they can slap you with it
? That’s all he is, just an ornery beast who’ll shit all over himself in the hopes of getting a little of it on you.’

  She laughed at that, a long, bubbling peal as she rose from the water, wringing out her hair just as I had. ‘You know, Elodie, you don’t talk like someone who’s never had a lick of schooling.’

  I didn’t know how to reply but she said nothing else, letting the silence stretch out until I felt compelled to speak. ‘I used to listen in when my brothers and sisters practised their lessons. Ma would help them at the table while I got on with the cooking, and if I worked quietly I could listen in. And then when I had charge of them if Ma was out, I’d make them sit and read a page to me if they got into mischief.’ We’d always had a few books, and old copies of the Almanac and such. Lem always wanted to appear educated, and his children, too. But I wasn’t counted among them.

  ‘Sneaky,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘I like it.’

  Sneaky. I’d heard that before, usually with disdain, but there’d been none of that in Aleida’s voice. Before she could ask any more awkward questions, I tried to send the conversation elsewhere. ‘Is that why you decided to be a witch? So you wouldn’t have to . . . be like your ma?’

  ‘I never thought that far ahead,’ she said. ‘Ma and my sisters were always at me to bring in money, so I turned thief. I got caught and would have got my hand cut off for it, if Gyssha hadn’t pulled me out of the jail. She gave me the choice, be her apprentice or stay in the cell and wait for the axe. You can imagine it wasn’t a hard decision.’

  She stepped out of the water and reached for her shift, shaking it out as she wrinkled her nose. ‘I suppose it’ll have to do. Tell me, Dee, do we have any of those scones left?’

  ‘A few,’ I said. ‘They’ll need to be eaten up today, or they’ll be hard as rocks by tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt there’ll be any fear of that. We’ll head back to the cottage, and then I need you to light that blasted fire again. I’ve got an idea about our friend in the black cloak, but I need to talk to some people first. Put the kettle on, Dee, and I’ll invite them around for tea.’

  CHAPTER 5

  I didn’t ask any more questions as I bustled about the cottage, sweeping up the old ashes, lighting a fresh fire and drawing more water. Meanwhile, Aleida disappeared into Gyssha’s bedroom and emerged again with clothes she must have scavenged from the old witch’s things, although they didn’t look as ill-fitting or old-fashioned as I’d have expected. She found her stays where I’d left them and gingerly pulled them on over her tender ribs and tightened the laces with a small grimace. When she noticed me watching from the corner of her eye she tweaked the skirts and said, ‘I remembered I left some things behind when I ran off.’

  ‘It’s a wonder she didn’t burn them,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, there’d be no fun in it if I wasn’t here to watch.’ Then she fell still, cocking her head to one side.

  I immediately went tense. ‘What is it? Is the rider back?’

  ‘No, no. Just someone tripping a wire down the end of the field. I think our guests are here. Come out and meet them, Dee.’

  It was late afternoon now, and the sun was sinking. The back of the house faced east, so the field was already in shadow. About halfway down, facing the house with a bow in his hands, was a familiar figure — a tall, lean man all in brown, with a floppy-brimmed leather hat. Attwater.

  It took me a moment to realise that the bow he held had an arrow nocked to the string and held at half-draw.

  Aleida didn’t seem to notice. She paused at the doorway to scoop up the walking stick Attwater had given me and started down the meadow towards him. She was walking more slowly than she had earlier, I noted, and had started to limp. I’d best be sure to bring in some more wood later, I told myself.

  ‘Attwater,’ Aleida said by way of greeting.

  ‘What do ye want, Blackbone?’ the woodsman growled.

  ‘I just want to talk,’ she said. ‘To both of you.’ She glanced towards the orchard. ‘Come on out, Laurel. I know you’re there.’

  There was no movement from the trees, and Aleida sighed. ‘Come on. Don’t make me pull on strings. This is supposed to be a friendly get-together.’

  ‘If ye wanted us friendly ye shouldn’t have put yer mark on her,’ Attwater said.

  Aleida turned back to him with a cool, measured gaze. ‘If I hadn’t, would you be standing here now?’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘I told you I’d free her, and I did.’

  ‘And then ye branded her like some gods-damned cow.’

  Aleida bared her teeth, an expression vaguely like a smile. ‘You’ll forgive me for having some caution. You know what I’ve had to deal with.’

  After a moment, I saw something stir among the trees, and then a creature stepped out into the meadow.

  She was all green, brown and gold, and clearly a she, if you know what I mean. Impossibly tall, and slender as a willow. Her top half looked human, if you overlooked the enormous eyes, skin speckled like the bark of a young sapling, and hair that was a tangle of leaves and supple stems. Her lower half, though . . . she had the legs of a deer, and balanced on delicate hooves as she stepped lightly across the cool, wet grass. She looked like something out of a dream. Despite Attwater’s words, I couldn’t see anything on her that could be a mark or a brand, but then maybe it was something that couldn’t be seen.

  As she drew near, Aleida gave her a polite nod. ‘Laurel.’

  The dryad nodded back. ‘Witch.’

  Aleida turned to me. ‘Dee, could you bring us some tea? For yourself, as well.’

  There was an old tree stump to one side of the meadow, and a few logs scattered around it by way of seats. By the time I returned with a tray loaded with a teapot, cups and scones, the three were sitting stiffly around it. I set the tray down, and, glancing at my mistress for permission, poured a cup for each of us.

  ‘How are you, Laurel?’ Aleida said, cradling the cup between her hands.

  ‘As well as can be expected,’ the dryad replied. ‘And you?’ If the words seemed friendly, their tone was not. Her voice was strange, lilting and liquid, not a human sound at all, though I could understand her quite clearly.

  ‘I’ve been better.’

  Attwater picked up his cup, and frowned dolefully at the tea inside.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Aleida said. ‘I didn’t call you here to poison you.’

  ‘Ye said ye wouldn’t use that blasted mark—’

  ‘I said I wouldn’t use it unless I had to!’

  ‘And now it’s what, a week later?’ He cast a sour glance my way. ‘I should have walked away when Grigg Anderson asked me to see that lass out here. She’d have been better off as a pot-girl in the tavern than out here with ye.’

  I knew it wasn’t my place to talk, but I couldn’t let that pass. ‘Well I do apologise for the imposition,’ I said, keeping my voice sugary sweet. ‘But I’d have found my way out here with your help or without it. And where I come from we take care of our neighbours when they’re ill or injured; we don’t leave them to starve and thirst and freeze.’

  Attwater tipped his head back to look at me. ‘There’s the proof ye don’t have witches where ye come from, lass. Would ye walk into a lion’s den to check up on the beast if ye hadn’t seen it for a few days?’ He turned back to Aleida. ‘The lass has no idea what she’s getting herself into.’

  Aleida set her cup down with a sigh. ‘I’ve tried to send her off with money in her pocket, but she won’t go. And given how she got here, I’m not sure I can get rid of her. And so here we all are. Drink your damn tea, Attwater. I’m trying to be nice here, could you at least try to work with me? I haven’t even touched this food, it came from the Sanford place this morning. You know I’m telling the truth.’

  Attwater paused. ‘These are Tabby Sanford’s scones?’

  ‘Every last crumb. Seriously, Attwater. If I wanted to poison you or bewitch you, I’d just do it. I don’t have the t
ime or the energy for games right now.’

  He shrugged, and reached for a scone and the pot of butter. ‘Fine, then. So what do ye want?’

  She picked up her cup again and took a slow sip. ‘I’ve found out what Gyssha meant to do with Laurel.’

  ‘And?’ He buttered a scone, and Laurel lightly touched his arm. Her fingers, I noted, were long and slender like twigs, studded here and there with buds like green and gold jewels. She reached for the scone he’d just buttered, and he handed it over without a word.

  They were lovers, I realised, and suddenly I understood why he’d come armed and ready to shoot.

  Laurel took a small bite, and then pulled a displeased face. Still, she chewed and swallowed, but handed the remains back to Attwater and reached for her teacup.

  ‘She made a deal with some warlock from down on the plains,’ Aleida said. ‘He’s come to collect.’

  The two across the makeshift table shared a glance. ‘And?’ Attwater said again.

  Aleida laid her hands on the stump, spreading out her long fingers. ‘You might have noticed I’m not exactly in great shape. I can deal with him, but I need to get close, get inside his guard. I’m going to need some help.’

  Attwater blanched. ‘Lord and Lady. I think I see where this is going, and I don’t like the look of it.’

  Beside him, Laurel shook her head with a rustle of leaves. ‘No.’

  ‘Would you just let me—’

  ‘No!’ Laurel said. ‘You want to put me back inside that cage?’

  ‘Just as a ruse,’ Aleida said. ‘I’ll give you the damn key. You too, Attwater.’

  ‘And then what?’ Attwater growled. ‘Ye think he won’t be expecting ye to betray him? Ye’ll lose her just like ye lost Bennett and Rosalie—’

  Aleida thumped her fist on the tree stump with a snarl. ‘Don’t you dare lay that at my feet! Don’t you dare!’ She heaved herself up, hands on the table. ‘I tried to save him! I tried to save all of them, but they wouldn’t listen! I told him to get out of here, I gave him all the money I had, but he just wouldn’t listen. No one ever listens.’ She hung her head, black hair draping across the ancient, scarred wood.