Well of Witches

by J. A. White

  “My apologies,” Kara said. “What is it, Captain Clement?”

  “There’s something you should see.” He nodded toward Taff. “Might be best if the boy stays here. Too scary for little ones.”

  Taff stared at him in disbelief.

  “Seriously?” he asked. “Do you have any idea what kinds of things I’ve seen? I could give nightmares nightmares!”

  “Suit yourself,” said Captain Clement.

  They followed the tall man deeper into the village, passing sooty rectangles that used to be buildings but were now little more than scorched wood and memories. That’s where the tannery used to be, Kara thought. And that long stretch is the barracks where the graycloaks lived. Over there was Baker Corbett’s place—you can still see the stones from the oven. A surprising feeling of nostalgia swept over her. She had never been happy here, but it had been home—and now it was gone.

  They crested a hill and the center of the village—where the Fold had once gathered for Worship—stretched out before them. Sitting Stones had been painstakingly arranged in a series of concentric rings so all of the congregation would have a clear view of the Fenroot tree at the circle’s center. This tree was the most important symbol of the Fold, and despite the destruction that had ravaged the rest of the village it remained whole and undamaged.

  From its limbs hung hundreds of animal skeletons.

  They swung back and forth in the wind, with little rhyme or reason to their arrangement. Some had been hung so high that they were just a glimmer of white in the late-afternoon sun; others were low enough to scrape across the ground. Mostly it was smaller livestock—goats, chickens, sheep—though on the opposite side of the Fenroot tree the unwieldy skeleton of a cow hung suspended by five ropes. Kara took some small comfort knowing that the animals had not been hung alive. The Children of the Fold, practical in all matters, would not waste good food; the animals had surely been butchered first, the meat salted and packed away for later consumption.

  “Do you understand the meaning behind this”—Captain Clement paused for a moment, searching for the right word—“display?”

  “Can something like this truly have a meaning?” Kara asked.

  “Surely you must have some idea. These are your people.”

  Kara shook her head. “Not anymore.”

  “Look,” Taff said softly, pointing to a shape just now turning in the wind to face them. Unlike the other skeletons, this one wore a black school dress with a white collar, giving it the appearance of a scarecrow. In the place where a human head should have resided sat a ram’s skull with long horns curved inward. Raven-black hair, possibly from a horse’s mane, draped over the empty eye sockets of the skull and down the back of the dress. Though the scarecrow lacked hands, a large black book had been affixed by copper wire to the left sleeve of the dress.

  “Who’s that supposed to be?” asked Captain Clement.

  Kara remembered the Shadow Festival, a row of similar scarecrows lining Widow Miller’s cornfield. I’m one of them now, a figure to frighten children. “I know what happened to the villagers,” she said. “They burned down their homes because they knew they were never coming back. They could have just left everything the way it was, but the great Timoth Clen would have wanted a grand gesture, some sort of ceremony. He probably called it the Great Cleansing or something like that. He knew I’d be back here. Somehow he knew. The animals are part of the message. I love animals, you see. He knows that because . . . the scarecrow. It’s me. All of this is for me.”

  “What are you prattling on about, girl?” Captain Clement asked.

  “He wants me to know that he’s taken his flock to the World, but he hasn’t forgotten. He’ll be looking for me. And when he finds me—”

  Taff ducked beneath Kara’s arm and nuzzled close, wrapping his arms around her.

  “Who?” asked Captain Clement. “When who finds you?”

  But Kara was done talking, and so it was Taff who answered.

  “The man wearing our father’s face,” he said.

  That night, Kara dreamed of the cornfield.

  It began as it always had. Father—her real father, evicted from his body and trapped in this endless dream realm—stood in the center of the barren soil and felt for the pouch of seeds in his pocket. Only instead of planting them right away, as he had in dreams past, Father poured the black seeds into the palm of his hand and poked at them with a single finger. His befuddled expression held a hint of frustration. New wrinkles had appeared near the corners of his eyes.

  He’s starting to remember, Kara thought. Grace’s spell can only hold him in this place for so long before he realizes it’s not real and begins to lose his mind. Once that happens, I won’t be able to get him back again.

  Suddenly, Father’s eyes narrowed in rage. He squeezed the seeds tight in his powerful fist. Kara couldn’t hear him scream—for whatever reason, there was no sound in this dream—but she saw the tightening cords of his neck as he unleashed a silent shriek of frustration. In his eyes swirling mists of madness gathered like an approaching storm.

  Kara awoke.

  Time is running out, she thought. If I don’t save him now, I’ll lose him forever.

  Knowing there would be no more sleep that night, Kara reached for the object beneath her bed and slid it into her satchel. She exited the room quietly, not wanting to wake Taff, and made her way across the silent deck of the ship. Above her, the stars twinkled like glowflies. Kara still expected to see the black canopy of the Thickety whenever she looked up, and the presence of those scattered stars provided as much relief as beauty.

  “I’ve escaped,” she said, as though speaking the words aloud might imbue them with enough power to calm her frazzled nerves. “I’m safe.” Except she wasn’t, of course, not even close. Rygoth would surely kill her the next time they met, unless the thing inhabiting her father’s body found her first, in which case she would be executed as an example to all witches. And then there was the World itself. The Children of the Fold had been forbidden to discuss it, so Kara had no idea what to expect.

  What if it’s even more dangerous than the Thickety?

  She moved quickly, slipping from shadow to shadow in order to avoid the occasional sailor. The ship, which Captain Clement had christened the Wayfinder, was crudely constructed and devoid of ornamentation. Two decks below Kara dozens of men, working in nine-hour shifts, dragged long oars through the water. Taff thought that making men labor in such a fashion was barbaric, and tried to prove that he could build a ship with sails through the use of a perfectly successful model, but no one had been willing to take a seven-year-old’s ideas about nautical engineering seriously.

  With a quick glance in either direction to make sure none of the night crew was looking her way, Kara descended the ladder to the cargo hold.

  A small lantern hung on a peg beside her, but Kara decided that the beams of moonlight shining through the ceiling boards would be enough to guide her way. The creaking and groaning of the Wayfinder, a worrisome backdrop their entire journey, was even louder down here. Ducking her head, Kara made her way past barrel after barrel of provisions secured carefully to wooden posts: water and ale, seed and salted beef, eggs packed in straw, and a purple grain that was the Thickety’s version of rice. Livestock milled in simple wooden pens, their nervous cries reverberating against the low ceiling. These were creatures of land, and the rocking motion of the ship upset them.

  “I understand,” Kara said, hardly enamored of ocean travel herself. “But don’t worry. We’ll be on land soon enough.”

  The animals pressed themselves against the walls of their pens to greet her. Kara reached a hand between the wooden boards, and a white-gray goat nuzzled her fingers. She smiled. Though Kara was no longer a witch, she had not lost her way with animals, and after what Timoth Clen had left for her on the Fenroot tree she felt the need for their warmth, their aliveness. After tickling the feathers of a playful hen, she strode over to the larger pens at th
e end of the ship, where the horses were kept. Shadowdancer whinnied impatiently, insulted that Kara had chosen to visit those less important animals first. The chestnut-brown mare leaned over the tall gate and nudged her head against Kara’s shoulder.

  “How are you feeling today?” Kara asked. She slipped an apple into Shadowdancer’s mouth. “Shh. Don’t tell Captain Clement I’m wasting people food on a horse. He’d be soooooo mad.”

  Shadowdancer still looked sickly and thin, having not yet completely recovered from her time as one of the Blighted, and her mane, when Kara pressed her face into it, smelled faintly of dead flowers. The mare’s deep brown eyes, however, were once again her own, stubborn and mischievous and full of life.

  Checking quickly in all directions to make sure that she was truly alone, Kara slipped into Shadowdancer’s stall and ducked behind its walls. I’m not doing anything wrong. How could I be? Nevertheless, a feeling of guilt washed over her, to the point where even Shadowdancer’s innocuous glance felt judgmental.

  She withdrew the white grimoire from the satchel and spread it across her lap.

  This isn’t yours, Kara thought, her guilt intensifying. You stole it from Safi and then left her behind in Kala Malta. That brave little witch helped you recover the elixir from inside Niersook, fought by your side—and you betrayed her. Kara reminded herself that she had only taken the grimoire to save Safi from its dark influence, but that was little consolation. If her intentions had been truly noble, then why hadn’t she thrown the spellbook overboard yet?

  Kara stared at the first page, carefully running her fingers over the smooth surface, and then flipped through the early portion of the book. If she had been able to cast spells, these first few pages—already used by Safi—would have rippled like black water.

  They looked completely blank to her.

  “Nothing,” Kara told the mare. “I might as well be a person who never used a grimoire in her life. I might as well be a boy!”

  Shadowdancer responded with a short snort. At first Kara thought the mare was mocking her, but then she noticed a mouse, white with a question-mark tail, skittering across the hay in the corner of the stall. Shadowdancer hadn’t been trying to convey her opinion; she was simply annoyed that another animal had infiltrated her stall.

  Kara held her palm flat along the hay and the mouse climbed onto her hand. “Hello there,” she said, enjoying the tickling sensation of its tiny paws against her skin. I’m not just a common witch, she reminded herself. I’m a wexari. I don’t need a stupid grimoire to cast a spell. She reached out with her thoughts, trying to build a mind-bridge to the mouse, the same technique she had used to control dozens of fearsome monsters in the Thickety.

  The mouse stared at her, unimpressed.

  Fine, Kara thought, but maybe Niersook’s venom only took away my wexari powers. Maybe I can still catch animals in the grimoire, just like I did when I first discovered I was a witch. Placing the tiny rodent carefully on the floor, Kara opened to a page well beyond the ones that Safi had used.

  She concentrated on the mouse.

  “Hop onto my hand.”

  If it worked, the mouse’s form would appear in the grimoire, a sketch drawn in tiny words.

  The page remained blank.

  What did you think would happen? Kara thought as the mouse scampered back to the hay. Your powers aren’t going to just randomly return like a lost voice after a cold. They’re gone forever.

  What was she going to do?

  There were such obstacles in Kara’s future. She needed to break the curse on her father. Stop Rygoth. Protect Taff. These were absurdly difficult tasks with her powers, but without them? She had no chance.

  Be honest, though. That’s not the real reason you’re down here.

  Kara slammed the grimoire shut and threw her head into her hands.

  She missed magic so much.

  After years of being ostracized Kara had finally felt like she was part of something. The creatures of the Thickety had accepted her in a way the Children of the Fold never had. For the first time in her life, Kara had belonged. Now that door had been closed to her forever, and the world, for a few months so vibrantly sharp, had lost its color.

  And whose fault is that? If I had used my powers better, none of this would have happened. Father would still be Father. Rygoth would still be imprisoned.

  I don’t deserve to be a witch.

  On the other side of the cargo hold, something clattered to the ground.

  Kara sprang to her feet and looked in the direction of the noise. The far side of the hold was dark and suffused with shadows.

  “Hello?” she asked. “Is anyone there?”

  There was no response, and after a few moments Kara exhaled deeply, deciding it was nothing. The way Captain Clement pilots this ship, it’s surprising more things don’t fall over.

  She stroked Shadowdancer’s mane, wishing she had brought another apple.

  “Be well, my friend,” she said. “Soon we’ll be on land, and you can run free.”

  Slipping between penned animals and towers of cargo, Kara made her way back toward the moonlight. Shadows seemed to stretch their arms toward her as she passed.

  Though dawn was still several hours away, Taff was already awake, which didn’t surprise Kara; their internal clocks had not yet readjusted to night and day outside the Thickety, leading to some odd sleeping hours. He sat in the center of their small cabin, surrounded by several toys from Mary’s sack. Not Mary’s—it’s his sack now, Kara thought, still uncomfortable with the idea of her brother toting around enchanted objects, especially when he treated them with such childlike carelessness. Strewn about the floor, among other oddities, were a straw doll that would shake its head if you told a fib, a cracked boomerang that always returned no matter where or how you threw it, and a stone die whose faces had been embossed with pictures representing the five senses—ear, nose, eye, mouth, hand—save the last face, which bore only a red circle. Its use had thus far eluded them.

  She closed the cabin door behind her. Taff didn’t look up. Since they had left Kala Malta he had been in a sullen, quiet mood.

  What did you expect? Safi was his friend. His only friend.

  He misses her.

  “You shouldn’t leave these all over the floor,” Kara said, nodding toward the magic toys. “They’re dangerous.”

  Taff raised his eyebrows.

  “Dangerous? Like walking around with an evil book that should have been thrown overboard days ago?”

  Taff hadn’t been pleased when Kara told him she stole Safi’s grimoire, but though he felt there must have been a more honest way to protect his friend, he understood the well-meaning intent behind Kara’s duplicity.

  What he didn’t understand was why she hadn’t gotten rid of it yet.

  “I can do it for you, if you want,” he said. “Throwing things overboard is fun. I like the little splashes.”

  “I don’t think we’re in deep enough water yet,” Kara said. “We don’t want it to wash up onshore. Some other poor girl might find it.”

  Ignoring Taff’s dubious look, Kara sat down on her cot and felt several sharp jabs from the metal jacks that had been carelessly tossed across the mattress.

  “Seriously?” she asked, chucking the toys at her brother.

  Taff shrugged. “I need to make a mess. That’s how I think.”

  “Mary would have happily explained what each of these did before we left.”

  “How would that be any fun?” he asked, honestly puzzled. “Besides, even she doesn’t know what some of these toys do.” He indicated a pile to his left: several pinwheels, a single arrow with a glass sphere at its tip instead of a point, tumbling blocks strung together with tattered ribbons. “I need to figure out all their powers so I can finally do something useful.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kara asked. “You’ve been nothing but useful.”

  “I’ve had some good ideas,” Taff admitted. “Maybe even some great
ideas. But you’ve done all the hard stuff. It’s my turn to protect you now.”

  Because I can’t protect myself.

  She watched Taff pick up a box-shaped piece of wood no larger than a shoe, this boy who should have been playing with toys and not trying to deduce their magical properties, and was overwhelmed by a feeling of tenderness so intense it almost made her dizzy.

  “Guess what this one does,” Taff said.

  He handed the box to Kara and she turned it in her hands. A red door had been cut into the wood. Kara unhooked a simple latch, revealing a tiny storage compartment.

  “It’s a hideaway,” Kara said, smiling. “I had one of these when I was little. I used it as a treasure trove for buttons and dried flowers. Father made it for me—a birthday present, if I remember true. I watched him build it. He was so quick with a saw, so precise. That’s probably where you get your—”

  She stopped, noticing the tears swelling in Taff’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Kara said. “I shouldn’t talk about him.”

  “No,” Taff replied, shaking his head. “We should. Otherwise it’s like saying that he’s gone or something, which he’s not. He’s just . . . lost. That’s all. We’re going to get him back, I know it.” Wiping away his tears, he nodded toward the hideaway. “This one works a little differently than the one Father made you. I think it might be useful.”

  “No doubt,” Kara said, handing him the box, “but now’s not the time.” She knelt down so they were eye to eye. “There’s something you need to know.”

  She hadn’t anticipated telling him tonight, but seeing Taff’s undiminished love for his father made Kara realize that she had no right to keep the truth from him. If there was a chance, any chance at all, he needed to know.

  “I wanted to be certain first,” Kara said. “I couldn’t bear the thought of giving you false hope. But I guess there’s really no way to be sure, not with something like this.”

  She hesitated, reluctant to release the words into the world. After this, there would be no going back, like reporting the death of a loved one.