Begone the Raggedy Witches

by Celine Kiernan

  He was yelling into Mup’s face, and the place where he had poked her shoulder felt sore. But there were tears in his round dark eyes, and Mup felt more sorry for him than angry.

  Crow covered his face with his hands. “I hate them. I hate everyone.”

  The sound of voices rose up from the road as the people began to sing. It was a glorious sound, very strange and clear. Almost not like a sound at all, more like light moving through deep water, or new leaves opening across the face of a wood. Something physical and connected. Something that could travel the surface of the world. A message, designed for one person only to hear and understand.

  Crow turned to it, like someone hungry, clearly wishing it was for him.

  “We’ll find your dad,” said Mup. “I’ll make them find him. We…”

  But her friend had hopped backwards, his moment of openness gone as he spied someone coming up from the road. It was Sealgaire, running through the trees, Tipper and Badger hard on his heels. Crow cawed in anger and leapt from the ground, a bird in an instant, his glossy wings flapping.

  “Come back here!” snapped Sealgaire as Crow landed high in a nearby tree.

  Crow just cawed and clattered his beak.

  “There’s no time for tantrums!” yelled Sealgaire. “We must go before the queen’s enforcers come!”

  Crow just fluttered higher. Behind them, the song stopped. Sealgaire turned back to look at his people – they were already running for their caravans. The tornado-horses were whipping leaves up from the ground. High on his branch, Crow hopped defiantly from foot to foot.

  “Crow!” bellowed Sealgaire. “I can’t keep doing this for you! You’re risking other people’s lives!”

  Some of the caravans began leaving. Sealgaire gripped Mup by the arm. “I’ll leave you here!” he shouted to Crow. “I mean it this time!”

  “I don’t want to go with you anyway!” cawed Crow. “I hate you! I hate everyone!”

  With a desperate cry, Sealgaire began dragging Mup back to the departing caravans.

  “No!” she cried. “You can’t leave him for the witches!”

  Tipper circled them anxiously. “What’s wrong with the birdy?”

  Sealgaire would not look back. “He’ll follow,” he muttered. “He’ll follow…”

  Still striding forward, he glanced back. Crow remained stubbornly in place up his tree.

  Mup yelled and dug her heels in. Badger growled and tried to pull her from Sealgaire’s grip. But Sealgaire was much stronger than both of them, and he dragged them back to the caravan with no effort at all.

  “Mam!” yelled Mup. “Make them wait for Crow!”

  Mam paused at the door of Fírinne’s vardo, the wind from the tornado-horses whipping her hair about her face. Her dark eyes lifted to the angry raven clattering and hopping in the distant trees. For one moment Mup thought she would do something, but then Mam looked abruptly into the sky, gestured urgently to the others and turned away.

  “Mam!” screamed Mup.

  But Mam had shut herself in. Then Mup too was inside a vardo, flung up the steps by Sealgaire, with the dogs following quickly behind. The door slammed, and they were sealed into the crowded dimness.

  The vardo jerked to rattling life.

  “Will Birdy fly after us?” whimpered Tipper as Mup pressed her face to the blue and yellow glass. The roadside trees were flashing past in a blur, Sealgaire’s hair streaming back with the speed. Mup didn’t think any bird would be capable of keeping up.

  “They left him,” she whispered. “They left poor Crow behind.”

  By the time the caravan of vardos came to a halt, the sun had set and the woods had turned from gold to moonlit silver. Mup’s rage, however, was still a burning coal in her chest. As soon as Sealgaire lifted the latch, she stormed down the steps and across to her mother, who was just descending into the narrow road. The clann were gathering around her, hushed and murmuring, their eyes roaming the shadow-filled trees. Mup shot through them like a little red bullet. “They left Crow!” she cried.

  “Hush,” said Aunty, grabbing her before she could get to Mam. “Hush. Listen!”

  Gradually the stillness of their surroundings seeped through Mup’s anger. It was so quiet. Even breathing seemed like a mistake.

  Tipper came slinking to her left side, Badger to her right, and they all stood together, listening. They were at the edge of a village. The empty windows of the ornamented houses watched them. Each intricately painted door had a poster pinned to it, fluttering in the moonlight. The words were big, easy to read even from a distance:

  By Order of the Queen:

  DWELLINGS DEEMED UNLAWFUL.

  INHABITANTS DISPENSED WITH.

  REHABITATION PROHIBITED.

  Who lived here? thought Mup. Where have they gone? She huddled deep into her jacket, chilled by the suspicion that wherever the former inhabitants had gone, it had been against their will, and whatever had happened to them, they would never return.

  “Me scared,” whispered Tipper.

  “This was one of the first places to feel my sister’s wrath,” said Aunty. “The people here refused to paint over patterns which their grandmothers and great-grandmothers had designed. They could not believe the queen would end them, just because they wouldn’t whitewash their houses.”

  Sealgaire came up softly beside Aunty.

  “No one stood to fight for them, so they were taken away.

  Their former homes stand as a warning to this very day.”

  Aunty looked sideways at him. “You chose this place as the rendezvous, didn’t you? Thinking I’d forgotten.”

  “He left Crow behind!” said Mup. “He ran away and left him!”

  Sealgaire glanced at her only briefly, then turned back to Aunty.

  “I know what you want, Sealgaire,” said Aunty, “and the answer is no. I’ve kept Stella safe from this her whole life. You’ll not convince me to ruin her now by involving her in a losing battle. As soon as Daniel gets here, I’m taking him and her and these babies and we’re all going home.”

  “But what about Crow?” insisted Mup.

  Sealgaire, his eyes still locked with Aunty’s, shook his head in disbelief.

  “So, what Fírinne said about you is true.

  The fate of your people means nothing to you.

  I was convinced something bad had kept you from us…

  That you must be dead or enchanted or worse.

  But in truth you simply did not care.

  You abandoned us to her.”

  “We were fools to think we could defeat my sister,” said Aunty. “In the end I had my family to think about.”

  “Duchess, everyone you left behind had a family.”

  Aunty just jutted her chin. Desperately, Sealgaire’s gaze slid to Mam, and Aunty’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare try and drag Stella into this behind my back. This is not her fight.”

  “Well, whose fight is it then?” cried Sealgaire. For a moment his colours blazed fresh and clear in the murky light, then he deflated and they retreated to their faded state. He tilted his head, his black eyes very like Crow’s as he stared into Aunty’s stubborn face. “This has to be someone’s fight, Duchess. Someone has to think we’re important enough to stand up for.”

  Aunty simply tightened her lips and stayed silent until Sealgaire strode angrily away.

  Mup took her glowing hand. “What did he mean?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “He left Crow behind, Aunty. He just left him in the woods.”

  “Oh, enough about that damned boy, Pearl. There’s nothing we can do for him.”

  “Mam could make them go back for him, and—”

  “Enough! He’s not important. Do you understand? Only you are important. You and Stella and the baby!”

  “But why am I more important than Crow?”

  Aunty crouched, better to face Mup. She put her hand on Mup’s cheek. “Because I love you, darling. Don’t you know that? I love
you. I’ll always keep you safe.”

  Mup thought about this a moment. “But what if no one loved me? What if I was all alone, like Crow? Would I still be important enough to keep safe?”

  Aunty dropped her hand from Mup’s cheek. She sat back on her heels. “I … I never meant…”

  Mam came striding over, all business. “It seems we’ll be waiting a while for these people to show up with Daniel. Mup, you and Tipper should get some sleep. It’s been a long day.”

  “I want to say hello to my daddy!” barked Tipper.

  “Mam!” said Mup. “They left Crow behind in the woods. You have to make them go find him.”

  “Later,” said Mam, distractedly looking out into the trees. “Off to bed now. Come on. I’ll get you tucked up in Sealgaire’s vardo. By the time you wake up, your daddy will be here.”

  The vardo’s bed was in a pretty little alcove up near the ceiling. Filled with fat cushions, it was warm and cosy as a mouse’s nest. Mup refused to get under the duvet, and would only lie on top of the covers. She agreed to take off her shoes but held them tightly to her chest, fuming.

  After Mam left them, Tipper and Badger climbed the wooden steps a few times, to snuffle Mup’s face, but there was no room for them in the bed, and eventually they lay down on the floor and fell asleep.

  The village outside was very quiet. The moon shone bright through the stained-glass windows. Mup waited for Aunty to drift in on a moonbeam and check on her. She would give her a piece of her mind then. She’d make her talk about Crow. But Aunty did not check on her, and neither did Mam, and this made Mup feel strange and lonely and somehow invisible.

  On the floor, Badger snored his old-man-dog snore and Tipper snored his little-baby-dog snore, and Mup was glad to hear them. She could not imagine how it might feel to be Crow, out there in the shifting silver and shadow world, knowing that no one would come if he called.

  I suppose, she thought, Crow is a very rude boy. Maybe if he was nicer, people would be more inclined to help him?

  But, in her heart, Mup knew that no matter how rudely she behaved, her family would never leave her alone in a dark forest. She also suspected that if her family had been the type of people to treat her like that, she might have grown up to be rather rude herself. She might have been downright nasty. And then, she thought, people would be even more tempted to leave me behind.

  She rolled onto her side, watching the moonlight wink and shiver on all the many neat things in the vardo. She thought of the empty village outside. Of its disappeared inhabitants that no one had come to help. She wondered if there were many children in the world like Crow. She had a horrible feeling that there might be. It hurt to think of how many of them might be out in the night, alone and lonely while she was curled up warm and safe, protected by the very same people who had left Crow behind. She clutched her shoes a little tighter and resolved to find him as soon as she could.

  These thoughts were broken by a gentle pattering, like autumn leaves falling onto the roof. Mup sat up, listening. The pattering came faster, a strong gushing sound as if all the leaves in the world were pouring onto the roof of the vardo. The light through the windows began to ripple with a torrent of falling shadows.

  Mup put on her shoes, crept down the ladder, stepped over the sleeping dogs, and crept to the door.

  Outside, all the trees seemed to be shedding the last of their autumn burden at once, and the night was arush with the sight and sound of falling leaves. The clann were gathered at their doors and in the road, looking about expectantly.

  “The Speirling are coming,” said Aunty, somewhere close at hand, and Mup peeped around the corner of the vardo to see her and Sealgaire standing together in the dark. Sealgaire was looming over Aunty, his face all lit up with her ghost-light, while she stared up at him, her chin once again jutted in defiance.

  “As soon as Daniel is here,” she said, “Stella is going home. She’s not going to sacrifice herself for your people.”

  “That is not your decision to make,

  The heir herself is the one to take—”

  “No! Stella has a nice life in the mundane world. She has the babies to keep her busy. She has her husband to keep her distracted. She doesn’t want all this fighting and turmoil!”

  “I haven’t heard you once ask the heir what it is she wants to do!”

  Aunty’s reply was lost under the intense hiss and patter of the leaves, which were falling thick as snow now. Mup crept closer, straining to hear. Sealgaire said something, and Aunty’s eyes widened in fear. Sealgaire took something from his pocket – was it a necklace? Mup swiped the leaves from her vision, squinting as he held it up before Aunty, who shrank back. It was a necklace, a plaited leather cord from which dangled a heavy pendant in the shape of a glass bauble. Sealgaire thrust this towards Aunty. She flung her hands up in horror. There was a buzzing sound, and a crack of light. Then a noise like a kettle-whistle, and Aunty’s ghost swirled and diminished as it was sucked upwards from the ground into the pendant, like water spinning into a drain.

  Mup blinked. Aunty was gone. Only Sealgaire remained, standing in the flickering downpour of leaves, the pendant in his hand. Furtively, he put the necklace around his neck, tucked the glowing bauble beneath his shirt and turned to go. Mup stepped out into his path, glaring, and he froze at the sight of her.

  “I–I just want the chance to speak to the heir,

  Without the duchess being there.”

  Mup went to speak, but a shout from the road sent them both spinning to look.

  There were people descending from the treetops – floating downwards with the leaves. Haughty men and women, they were dressed in the courtly black clothing which identified them as part of the Speirling Clann. Their eyes scanned the road and trees and vardos as if expecting an attack. Mup’s heart leapt at the sight of her dad suspended among them. Dazed-looking, he leaned against one of the sharp-faced men, his eyes half shut, his face tilted to the ground.

  “Daddy!” cried Mup.

  But even as she ran forward, a great wind rose up to disrupt the ordered downfall of leaves. A host of raggedy witches came stalking through the trees – their cold, pale, deadly faces hinting of triumph; their long, pale, deadly hands outstretched; their robes and hair like dark tempests around them.

  “They’ve found us!” cried the Speirling. They ran, leaving Dad alone and dazed in the open ground between the caravans and the advancing witches.

  “Get my children to safety!” cried Mam, striding through the knot of retreating Speirling, heading for her husband, who had slumped to his knees, apparently unaware of what was going on around him.

  Mam lifted her hands, and lightning arced from her fingertips, bringing the raggedy witches to a halt. Mup had never seen anything as wonderful as her mother at that moment – so blazing with ferocity, so full of crackling life and power, so clear and so focused that she shone. Everywhere she stepped, the forest glowed like a precious jewel.

  She’s so beautiful, thought Mup.

  She ran to join her mother. As she ran, Mup felt her own arms rising, felt power tingle in her shoulders and along her spine. She clawed her fingers in imitation of Mam, and held them out as a threat to the raggedy witches, who were already recovering from the shock of her mother’s attack.

  The queen’s witches flexed their own hands. Webs of green fire laced their fingers. Some of them rose into the air, separating so that Mam had to divide her attention here and there as she countered their witch-fire with her own.

  “Daniel!” yelled Mam, firing and striding forward still. “Come to me!”

  The others – Clann’n Cheoil and Speirling – had clustered together by the caravans, huddled and afraid. But seeing Mam fighting the raggedy witches alone seemed to do something to them. One of the men suddenly ran to her side, fire gushing from his palms. After a tiny hesitation, a woman ran to join him. Then another, and soon all of the Clann’n Cheoil and some of the Speirling were rushing forward.

&nbs
p; The raggedy witches seemed everywhere now, emerging from the trees. Lightning blasted, and fire roared. Great fountains of leaves flew in blinding showers. Men and women fell, some screaming, some horribly still. A raggedy witch plummeted from the treetops like a dark comet, to land in an explosion of leaves close by. At the heart of the chaos, Dad looked up as Mam called his name again. He squinted at her but made no effort to rise from his knees. The raggedy witches were all about him.

  “Dad!” yelled Mup, still running. “Get up!” Sparks and glitter fizzed and spat at her fingertips, useless as a sparkler at Halloween.

  Behind her Tipper barked.

  Mam – still striding towards Dad – yelled to the people behind her. “Get my children out of here!”

  Lightning gouged the ground at Mup’s feet. Earth and leaves coughed upwards, obscuring her view. Suddenly, strong hands gripped her shoulders and she was yanked backwards and up. Someone was running with her in their arms, her face and hands trapped against their chest. She couldn’t move and she couldn’t see! Tipper barked angrily, and Badger too, over and over again.

  Terrified, Mup pushed against the person’s chest. There was a fierce, channelling sensation. Something like pain convulsed her hands. The person carrying her screamed, and she was blasted from their arms, the two of them thrust in opposite directions.

  Mup fell. Her head hit something, a stone maybe, and there were stars.

  Someone strode past her. A woman. Mup realized to her vague dismay that it was a raggedy witch. The ends of the woman’s dark cloak trailed Mup’s face as she crossed, unheeding of Mup’s limp body, to the huddled man, who only moments before had been carrying Mup in his arms.

  She doesn’t see me, Mup thought dimly, because I’m buried in these leaves.

  The witch stooped to look closely at the man. The silver streak in her hair glimmered in the firelight, and Mup recognized her as the witch who had tried to steal Mam away the night Aunty died. Behind her, trees were burning, rebels ran and screamed. The witch showed no reaction to these awful things. She spoke to the man on the ground. “Sealgaire.”