A Curse of Ash and Embers

by Jo Spurrier

  Then, with one more swing, the branch came loose and whipped away from me as the beast stumbled backwards.

  ‘Out!’ Aleida bellowed at me. ‘Out! Out!’

  I staggered back, not daring to turn away from the tree, while it twisted and writhed as though in a storm. Then, once I was well out of reach I surveyed our work properly — and recoiled from that, too. The branch on the ground twitched and jerked like a headless snake, and the end where I’d hacked it from the tree wept blood-red sap that hissed and smoked where it landed on the grass. Everywhere it touched, the green grass turned black and crumbled to ash.

  I tore the stifling cloth away from my face, drawing a deep breath, glad now of the cool night air. ‘Lord and Lady,’ I said, resting the axe head on the ground and leaning against the handle. ‘Is that enough wood for you? Please tell me that’s enough.’

  ‘Enough?’ Aleida said, looking it over. ‘Yeah, should be enough. It’ll have to be, actually, the tree will have defences up now; it’s probably not safe to cut any more tonight.’

  ‘Defences?’ I said. ‘Defences! You mean, more than it already has?’

  ‘Mm-hm,’ she said. ‘Some plants can do that, you know, pump poison into their leaves when something tries to eat them.’ She looked over the tree, the twitching branch, and the beast, unmoving now and with the rope still wrapped around its horns. ‘All right, Dee, I’ve got it from here. Clean the axe off and put it away for me, would you?’

  I looked at the axe, streaked with what looked like blood. Then I looked down at my dress, and saw that it was spotted with dozens of tiny holes, like I’d been attacked by a swarm of moths.

  I turned away without a word, and strode back up to the cottage. I’ve had enough of this. I’m going back to bed.

  CHAPTER 6

  It took me forever to go back to sleep, and when I did I dreamed of those vines wrapping around me, choking the life out of me. In the end all I had was a few more hours of restless sleep before daylight woke me.

  I found Aleida in her bed, asleep atop the covers with the box bed’s sliding door open. The sun would wake her soon, just as it had me. She seemed stronger than she had been when I first came here — some decent food and a fire had seen to that — but her colour was still poor, and I saw that she’d brought the walking stick inside with her and left it leaning beside the bed.

  Quietly I slipped outside and set about the morning chores, fetching water and wood, milking our new goat and turning her out on a tether near the top of the orchard. Everything around us was shrouded in mist. The trees of the orchard soon vanished into the fog, and the meadow behind the cottage seemed to peter out into nothing. It wasn’t eerie, though, just quiet and cosy, like the cottage and the grounds were snuggled up under a blanket, soft and calm.

  By the time I returned to the house, carrying the warm milk in a cooking pot for want of a decent pail, Aleida was hobbling outside, leaning heavily on the stick.

  ‘I would murder someone for a cup of coffee right now,’ she said by way of greeting.

  ‘Can’t help you there, I’m afraid. Tea?’

  ‘Sure.’

  The branch we’d cut from the demon tree seemed much smaller by daylight than it had last night. It was a little taller than I was, but it was spindly and thin — broken up it would barely be enough to start a fire. Aleida had strung it up to the eaves of the house, like a hunter would hang a hare, and set a bowl underneath to catch the sap that dripped from the broken end.

  Inside I set about making porridge with oats and fresh milk, and watched through the window as she cut down her catch. A moment later she called me out again to fetch her some water and other odds and ends. When the porridge was done I dished it out into two bowls, drizzled with honey, and brought hers out to her.

  By now, she was carefully cutting the branch up into smaller pieces, but she set it aside and peeled off her gloves before taking the bowl from me, and I sat nearby to eat my own. ‘Miss?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Can I ask . . . what are you going to do with that?’ I nodded to the wood. The broken pieces merely oozed with red now, instead of dripping like a fresh wound.

  ‘I’m going to make a construct,’ she said. ‘Just a little one. I’ll march it right into his camp and into his fire, and then . . .’ With the bowl balanced on her knee she mimed an exploding puff of smoke with her hands. ‘Of course, I have to find him first.’

  ‘Will it be enough?’

  ‘Should be, if I add a few other bits and pieces. I don’t want to make it too big, this stuff—’ She frowned down at the slender branch. ‘It has some odd properties. The smoke taints everything it touches and, sometimes . . . it’s the demonic taint, you see, sometimes it makes . . . weak spots, I guess you’d call them. Too much would make a rift.’

  ‘Weak spots?’ I said.

  ‘It lets things through.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand at all, though.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Hopefully you won’t have to.’

  I scraped my bowl clean and set it aside. Aleida was still working on hers. If I’d ever taken that long to eat back home, I’d have been accused of laziness and of trying to get out of my work, but after a week of near starvation I figured it must be hard for her to adjust to proper meals again. ‘Have you any particular tasks for me today? I thought I’d keep on with the garden, and our woodpile isn’t looking too—’

  ‘Can you ride a horse?’ she broke in.

  ‘I, yes,’ I said. ‘I mean, I used to. I haven’t in a few years, but I used to ride on errands for Ma and Lem.’

  She turned to me, eyebrows raised. ‘Used to? But they made you stop?’

  ‘Ma decided I wasn’t to leave the house and yard anymore, so I wasn’t allowed to ride after that.’

  Eyeing me up and down, Aleida shuffled closer. ‘I’m sensing a story here.’

  I felt myself flushing.

  ‘Come on, Dee, spill it.’

  I grimaced. ‘Honestly, she blew it all out of proportion. We used to go to the market every month, see? Well, they still do, but I wasn’t allowed to anymore. Ma caught me, well, she caught me kissing a boy there.’

  ‘Really?’ she said, feigning shock, and then snorted. ‘Oh, the horror.’

  ‘And when Lucette was caught sneaking off with the Brampton lad earlier this year all she got was a scolding! And I got treated like I’d stolen the crown jewels or something! It wasn’t like he was a stranger, either, we were friends when we were little. Ma worked for his family for a while, see, after Da died, but then, well, to be honest I think she was caught stealing from them, so we had to leave. We’d see each other there at the market every so often, and he was just so nice.’

  ‘Turned out well, did he?’ Aleida said, raising one eyebrow.

  All I could do was nod. ‘After that Ma said I had to stay home. Couldn’t be trusted, she said.’

  Aleida nodded, thoughtfully. ‘All right. So can you still ride?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I expect so. But do you have a horse?’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘He’s been running wild for the last week or so, but I’ve called him back.’

  ‘And what do you want me to do? Take a message somewhere?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I need to brew a potion, and I want you to gather the ingredients for me. Oh, and collect those packs I stashed away before I came down to face Gyssha.’

  ‘A potion? What sort?’

  ‘For me. I don’t have time to regain strength the normal way, so I have to cheat. That warlock thinks he can knock me over with a feather and I don’t have a lot of time to prove him wrong.’

  ‘You’re in better shape than you were, though,’ I said, eyeing her up.

  ‘Mm,’ she said. ‘Not by much, I’m afraid. It’ll take more than food and sleep to really get me back on solid ground.’

  I grimaced at that. ‘Well, spending half the night messing around with a demon tree probably isn’t great for heal
ing, but at least we haven’t had that ghost back again, or we’d have slept even less.’

  I realised Aleida had fallen still, staring at me with narrowed eyes. ‘What did I say?’

  ‘Bennett,’ she said. ‘The ghost. You’re right, he hasn’t come back. There hasn’t been a single night since I came back to this cursed cottage that he hasn’t come to howl at me at least twice . . .’ All at once she looked incredibly sad, her eyes an ocean away as she sat with a hand curled around her mouth, the other wrapped around her ribs, as though something inside her ached.

  ‘Maybe he did move on, after all,’ I said. ‘Who was he, anyway? You said he was Attwater’s kin? What happened to him?’

  ‘Bennett?’ she said, and turned away, looking over the field. Porridge finished at last, she pulled her gloves on again and picked up a piece of the snakewood tree and a little whittling knife. ‘He was Attwater’s nephew, well, great-nephew or great-great; I never did figure it out exactly.’

  ‘Was he . . . like you? And Attwater? I mean, something more than human?’

  She gave me an exasperated look. ‘I’m as human as you are, Dee. But Bennett was just an ordinary lad. Woodcutter’s son. I met him the first time Gyssha brought me here. I’d never set foot in the countryside before, and Gyssha sent me out to gather something or other. I got lost, but Bennett found me and helped me. He was a sweet lad.

  ‘Gyssha and I only ever came for the summer, the growing season, you see, for the orchard and the gardens, and time for Gyssha to cook up her plans and schemes. I hated it. I was a haughty little thing back then, very pleased with myself. Gyssha liked it that way, it makes a person easy to manipulate. Come the fall, with a wagon full of potions and constructs and odds and ends, we’d head off to a new city. Then in the spring we’d come back to this boring backwater, loaded down with silk and silver and one of those chests you saw in Gyssha’s room.’ She shook her hair back and slumped forward with a sigh, her elbows on her knees. ‘And every year I’d come back to Bennett. I’d tell him all about it; the fancy gowns and the balls, the gold and jewels, the fights, the intrigue, the excitement of it all. I didn’t understand what we were doing at first — I was just a whore’s get from the Rat’s Nest, what did I know of politics and war? It was a game to Gyssha, and I was a handy pawn. It was only when I told Bennett all about it that I realised what we’d done. Have you ever heard of Karolina?’

  I shook my head. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Not a she, but an it. Karolina was a city. I . . . look, Dee, I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of. Karolina’s the worst of them, I think. The city’s gone now. There was a war. The duke was supposed to marry the neighbouring lord’s daughter, but the night before the wedding she was found in bed with the duke’s rival . . . well, you can imagine the rest. That’s what Gyssha did, and for the fun of it, too. If it was just gold she wanted she could have taken it like any other thief, but that wasn’t enough for her. She had to destroy, as well. Lives, families, happiness. Cities. The more havoc she could cause the happier she was.’

  ‘Is that why you killed her?’ I said, softly.

  She looked up at me from beneath strands of black hair. ‘No. It’s why I left, though. But that was a couple of years ago.’

  She was silent for a moment after that, and I thought of prodding her to go on, but I remembered Mrs Sanford from the day before, and how she’d let silence draw my own tale out of me.

  ‘For a time I thought I was in love with Bennett, but we both thought better of it eventually. I never wanted to stay out here, but he had the mountains and the woods in his blood. He was a country boy and I’m a city girl . . . and he met someone.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Oh no.’

  She looked up sharply. ‘It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t jealous. He was my friend, I wanted him to be happy, and Rosalie was perfect for him, she was lovely.

  ‘Gyssha was furious. She didn’t want me to have any friends, let alone a beau; but it was even worse to have one and lose him. Unthinkable to let him be with someone else. When I left, I told Bennett to get away from Lilsfield, take Rosalie and move somewhere far away. I gave him money to help and I thought he’d gone . . .’

  ‘But she killed him?’

  Aleida heaved a sigh. ‘Worse than that. She killed Rosalie, and their little twins. Poison. A slow one. And when it was over, Bennett started to sicken as well, so he climbed to the top of a waterfall and threw himself off. And then he came to tell me.’ She fell silent after that, looking out over the field and into the forest. ‘That’s why I came back. That’s why I killed her.’

  I couldn’t help but think of Jeb and Maisie, and all my other siblings, too, the ones I’d held and rocked and cared for alongside Ma. I couldn’t imagine how it’d feel to watch them wither away, to know who had done it, and be able to do nothing. ‘Why?’ I said. ‘Why would she do something like that?’

  ‘I tried to ask her,’ Aleida said. ‘But she just laughed and laughed . . .’

  I clenched my fists, digging fingernails into skin. ‘I’m glad she’s dead.’

  ‘Me too.’ She gave a sigh. ‘Isn’t it funny how things work out? I never wanted to come back here, but Bennett couldn’t bear to leave. Now he’s gone, and here we are.’ She tossed her head. ‘Maybe he did go on through the veil. Maybe . . .’ Throwing down her knife and the piece of wood she was whittling, she heaved herself up. ‘The horse will be here in a few minutes. You should get yourself ready to go.’

  Quickly I cleaned up the breakfast bowls and made sure I was dressed for tramping about the forest. I was still scrounging in the old stables for a sack without too many holes when Aleida called me out to the meadow.

  There, like an apparition in the fog, was a beautiful dapple-grey horse. He was tall and lean, a far cry from the farmers’ cobs that I’d known. With a deep chest, arched neck and long, clean legs, he looked like he was built for speed.

  ‘I rode him here when I came back to face Gyssha,’ Aleida explained. ‘Before the fight I turned him loose, though I did ask him not to wander too far. Problem is, I left his saddle and bridle with the rest of my gear. You’ll have to ride bareback to go and get it.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, feeling myself blanch. ‘I’m not sure I can manage that.’ Perhaps I could have done it on the flat on a lazy old cart-horse, but in these hills, on a beast that had been running wild for the past week? It sounded like a recipe for disaster. I could just see myself sliding off the back of him on some steep hillside.

  ‘It’s not far,’ said Aleida. ‘You’ll be all right, Dee; I’ll keep a hand on him until you get the saddle and bridle. I haven’t the strength to Borrow him the whole time you’re out, but I can help you for a while.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said again. ‘Well, in that case I think I saw an old halter in the stables that’ll give me something to hold on to, at least.’

  I hurried back to the sheds and returned with an ancient halter, knotted from rope.

  ‘Now,’ Aleida started, and then broke off. ‘Oh rats, I’ll have to write you a list.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be any use anyway,’ I said, feeling my cheeks flush. ‘I can’t read, remember?’

  She gave me a sharp look and it made me think of the way Ma looked at me every time I reminded her of her promise to teach me. One day. When we have time.

  ‘Oh,’ Aleida said. ‘You did tell me that. Well, how’s your memory?’

  ‘It’s pretty good.’

  I wasn’t sure if she believed me but she didn’t question it. ‘All right, here’s what I need.’

  The list she recited was quite long and utterly nonsensical, or so it seemed to me. She asked for three white stones from a particular pool along the stream; six twigs from six different hazel bushes, each with seven buds; five milk-thistle heads; two day-lily buds, a butterfly’s empty cocoon, a splinter of wood from a tree that had fallen across a stream, a cupful of dirt from a place where one path branched into two . . . it went on and on, and, though it made no sense,
I listened carefully, and when she was done I recited it all back to her, ticking them off on my fingers as she nodded along.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Impressive, actually. Well, first you’ll need to find the old hunting bothy to the north-east — cross the stream, head left until you come to a valley, then follow it back until it climbs up into the rocks. Just before you reach the granite there’s a little track to the left, that’ll take you to the bothy, and my packs and gear are around the back. Don’t go poking in my saddlebags, there’s things in there that are dangerous in the wrong hands. But you’ve got better sense than that, anyway,’ she said with a flick of her hand.

  I wasn’t sure what a bothy was, but I figured I’d find out soon enough. ‘What if we come across one of those wretched beasts?’ I said. ‘Or the warlock?’

  ‘Run away,’ Aleida said. ‘As fast as you can, straight back here. I’ll be with you until you reach the bothy, just in case you fall, but after that you’ll be on your own, all right?’

  I nodded, though I didn’t feel at all sure about the matter. ‘Um, is there any way I can call you? Just in case I get lost, or we run into one of those beasts, or something.’

  She scowled, looking cross, and for a moment I thought she’d tell me to just get on with it, but then her expression softened. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Yeah. I suppose I should. Let me think.’ She turned away, gripping the walking stick with both hands. Then she hobbled over to the orchard and broke a twig off the nearest tree. Once she came back towards me she beckoned me close. ‘Come here, Dee.’

  She plucked a single hair from my head, scoffing when I protested at the sting of it, and then pulled out one of her own. Holding the strands together, she wrapped them around and around the twig. Then, cupping it between her hands, she breathed on it, and for a moment I saw light streaming between her fingers. ‘There,’ she said, handing it to me. ‘If you get in trouble, snap it and I’ll find you. Off you go, now; I need those ingredients as quickly as possible.’