by J. A. White
“They have harmed no one.”
“She had a spellbook! A weapon.”
“My grandson here has a bow. Shall we murder him too?”
Grandson? Does he mean Lucas?
“That’s different. He’s one of us.”
“Ah,” said West, templing his fingers beneath his chin. “Are we at that point already? ‘Them and us’?” His eyes grew dark, and East shifted uneasily in his seat. “You must be very wise indeed to understand this situation so completely when I, doddering old fool that I am, find myself completely lost.”
“May I speak?” Kara asked.
The four Mistrals turned in her direction.
“Perhaps we should not let you,” West said. “After all, our youthful East, having not looked into your eyes and seen the kindness there, is no doubt afraid your words will bring lightning and calamity from the skies.” The old man smiled, revealing one last tooth dangling from his upper gum. “But since I’m so much closer to the Final Wind I’m willing to risk it.”
Kara spoke slowly, taking the time to meet each of the Mistrals’ eyes in turn. She remembered her father doing the same thing when trying to mediate difficulties between other farmers, back in the days before Mother had been taken from him.
“There is a witch among you,” Kara said. “What she is doing is wrong, and must be stopped, but it’s not entirely her fault. She is being controlled by her grimoire.”
East scoffed. “That’s just an excuse. Protecting her own kind.”
“You can’t possibly understand.”
“And I suppose you do?” questioned East.
“All too well.”
East held Kara’s gaze for just a moment and then looked away.
“So what do we do?” asked South.
“Let me find her,” Kara said. “Perhaps she’ll listen to me.”
“This isn’t a time for talking—” East began.
“She’s the only one who can undo the spell on these children!” exclaimed Kara. “If you kill her, you’re killing them as well!”
The other Mistrals considered this and then nodded, which only served to infuriate East more.
“I refuse to sit here a moment longer and listen to this . . . child!” East exclaimed. “I’ve already sent for help. An expert on these matters. He will be here any day.”
“Far too long for the children taken to wait,” South said. She offered Kara a bright smile. “The wind has brought this child here for a reason. She is the one who will help us. I can feel it.”
“There are two things I would ask in return,” Kara said.
“See!” East shouted. “She’s after a reward. I knew it!”
“First, I’d like my friend Safi to be released.”
“I find this reasonable,” North said. “After you’ve helped us, however. Not before.”
Kara grimaced. Safi’s powers would have been very useful while searching for the witch. Then again, after what happened she wasn’t sure if Safi would even be willing to help her anymore.
“My second request is transport to Sablethorn.”
Three of the Mistrals exchanged bewildered looks, while West, deep in thought, stroked his long hair.
North cleared his throat and spoke. “As the Northern Mistral, it is my duty to compile the most current maps of the land. There is no such place.”
“We’ve only recently discovered that magic is a real thing,” said South. “Is it so strange to think there might be a place not on your precious maps?”
“Those maps are constructed by the finest cartographers in the world! Just because you don’t understand—”
“I know of Sablethorn,” West said quietly. “Though I was only a boy when I heard the name, and even then it was the distant memory of one as ancient and wizened as I am now. Really no more than a folktale. I cannot guarantee that it’s even real. But as long as you’re willing to take that risk, I’m happy to provide you with transport to its supposed location.”
It wasn’t the guarantee that Kara had been hoping for, but in the end it didn’t matter; her course had been set since she learned of Rygoth’s involvement. I freed her. That means what happened to those children is my fault. I have to set things right.
“I’ll find your witch,” Kara said.
She requested to be taken to Safi immediately so she could let the girl know they hadn’t forgotten about her, but East argued that any contact between the two witches should be forbidden. The other Mistrals, too tired to argue the point, had granted East this minor victory.
Kara and Taff were dismissed.
Lucas led them back along the beach, the guards lingering even farther behind this time. Kara told him all that had occurred. When she reached the part about their need to discover the hidden witch, his face brightened.
“A problem!” Taff exclaimed.
He split off from the older children, deep in thought, walking so close to the waves that water soaked the soles of his boots.
Lucas eyed him curiously.
“What’s he doing?”
“Being brilliant,” Kara said. “Is West really your grandfather?”
Lucas nodded.
“On my mother’s side. Once he found out we were linked by blood he took me in immediately. Grandfather is a great man.”
Kara started to ask another question but Lucas raised his hand.
“We’ve but a short walk back to the inn and mine’s not the story that needs telling tonight.”
Kara started to talk, slowly at first, but then faster and faster, like a boulder rolling downhill. She told him everything she could remember as she remembered it, sometimes in the right order, sometimes not. She told him how the villagers of De’Noran had nearly stoned them to death. She told him about the Draye’varg and notsuns and other horrors of the Thickety. She told him how she had mistaken Sordyr for her enemy and Rygoth for her friend.
She did not tell him about losing her powers, however. Lucas had spoken so highly of her to the Mistrals (“the hero of De’Noran,” he called me) and she wasn’t ready to face his disappointment when he learned she was just an ordinary girl now. Instead, Kara told him that she was currently unable to do magic because she didn’t have a grimoire. It was a half truth at best, and his look of sympathy made her burn with guilt.
By the time they reached the door of the inn Kara was so exhausted that she could barely keep her eyes open. Taff slipped inside without saying good night, muttering something about “wanting to check his sack for answers.”
“Sack?” Lucas asked.
“Magic toys,” Kara said, stifling a yawn. “I forgot that part. The witch named Mary Kettle, the one whose age was broken . . .”
Smiling, Lucas pushed the inn’s door open for her.
“Tell me tomorrow. There’s nothing more embarrassing than falling asleep during your own story.”
“Tomorrow,” Kara said, backing through the door.
It had been a terrible day. She had been roped into a dangerous search for a witch she had no hope of finding. Safi sat in a dark cell, probably cursing Kara’s name. Sablethorn, the place she had to reach if there was any hope of saving her father, might not even exist. And yet, as Kara’s head touched her pillow, sleep already tugging her into oblivion, she felt oddly optimistic for what the morning might bring.
Tomorrow I’ll see Lucas again.
Kara fell asleep smiling.
When Taff awoke the following morning he had come up with a plan. It was like this with him sometimes, his mind still working while his body slept.
“We’ll use Isabelle,” he said, crawling out of bed and removing the lie-detecting doll from his sack of toys.
“You named your doll?” Kara asked, still groggy.
“Well, I have to call her something. And there was a girl named Isabelle back in De’Noran who was always tattling on the boys.”
“I remember.”
“Seemed fitting.”
The straw doll was small enough to fit in Ta
ff’s hand but amazingly detailed, with braided hair, a hoop skirt, and twin circles of black thread for eyes.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“We ask all the girls in town if they’re a witch.”
“And?”
“I’ll keep Isabelle in my pocket and feel for if she shakes her head or not. If anyone’s lying, we’ll know right away.”
Kara chuckled. Like the best plans, it was absurdly simple. She was a little embarrassed that she hadn’t thought of it herself.
“What?” Taff asked.
“Nothing,” Kara said, leaping out of bed and tickling his toes. “So how are we going to do this? Go door to door?”
“Too long. What about bringing everyone to us? A town gathering, like Worship back in De’Noran.”
“That could work. Let’s ask Lucas how they do things like that here.” Kara rubbed sleep seeds from the corners of her eyes. “I’m not used to our plans being so straightforward. There are usually more complications than this.”
“Do you want to add some?” Taff asked eagerly. “The complications are my favorite parts.”
“Maybe we should just keep it simple for now. I don’t want Safi locked up a single moment longer than she has to be.”
“Do you think she’s all right?”
She imagined Safi in the darkness of her cell, trembling with cold, thinking of how Kara had snatched away her grimoire.
I was supposed to be her teacher. Her friend. She trusted me.
“Did I do the right thing?” Kara asked.
Taff picked at some dirt beneath his fingernails. “You wanted to make sure that no one got hurt.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I just want my friend back,” Taff said, finally meeting her eyes. “Part of me thinks you should have trusted her. The other part of me is glad you stopped her before she did something she couldn’t take back. I’m not sure there was a right decision.”
“Maybe,” said Kara. “But was there a wrong one?”
When Lucas arrived later that morning, Kara told him that they needed all the women and girls of Nye’s Landing in one spot. He agreed to help them without even asking why. “Just go down to the beach and wait for my signal,” he said. “I’ll do the rest.”
Kara nodded blankly, stunned by this demonstration of absolute trust.
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a true friend.
After close to an hour a bell tolled three times in succession and the residents of Nye’s Landing began to trickle onto the beach. Lucas and North, along with several other members of the town guard, sent the men away and organized the girls and women into a long line. The potential witches glared at Kara, their resentment as clear as their breaths pluming in the cold air.
“Sorry it took so long,” Lucas told her. “I had to get permission from the Mistrals to gather everyone on the beach. East didn’t want to allow it, of course. He thinks you’re up to something.”
“He believes that all witches are evil. Nothing will change his mind.”
“You will,” Lucas said, touching her arm. “You’re the proof that magic can be used for wonderful things. That witches can be good.”
Except I’m not a witch anymore. I’m nothing special at all.
“We should start,” Kara said. “Long line.”
Lucas quickly removed his hand from her arm.
“I’ll send them up one at a time,” he said. “That work for you?”
Kara nodded.
Lucas waved the first woman forward, a dour-looking old lady with a mop of stringy hair.
“I have some things to say,” she started, her hand on one hip. “First of all, let me tell you what I think about this spectacle you’ve—”
“Are you a witch?” Kara asked.
The woman was so shocked by the unexpected question that she could only cough out her next words.
“I am most certainly not! How dare you even imply that a woman such as—”
Kara glanced at Taff, standing by her side, his hand in one pocket. He gave her a slight nod: She’s telling the truth.
“Next!” Kara exclaimed.
Lucas ushered the still-complaining woman away and nodded the next one forward.
Kara and Taff settled into a rhythm after this—question, nod, question, nod—with Lucas in charge of keeping the line moving. Eventually Kara stopped looking to Taff for affirmation, knowing that if Isabelle sensed a lie he would find a way to let her know. As the afternoon wore down the line of people, which had at first seemed insurmountable, shrunk to a more manageable level.
None of them were witches.
The boats had started to dock for the day by the time Kara reached the last girl, a bespectacled waif with a spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“Are you a witch?” Kara asked, unsurprised when the girl answered, “Of course not!” and skipped away.
“Anything?” Kara asked Taff.
“Sorry.”
“You sure Isabelle’s working?”
“Let’s test her.”
Lucas, looking tired and grumpy, was heading in their direction.
“Hey,” Taff said. “Do you think my sister’s pretty?”
“What?” Lucas asked, completely caught off-guard. “No. I never thought about it. I . . . what?”
With a huge grin, Taff withdrew Isabelle from his pocket. The doll was vehemently shaking her head no.
“See?” Taff said. “She works just fine.”
Kara felt her cheeks grow warm.
“Could we have missed anyone?” she asked Lucas, anxious to change the subject.
“No way. North had one of his men keeping pace with the town register, making sure everyone was accounted for. You just talked to every female in Nye’s Landing.”
Kara sat on the sand, the sun on the downward arc of its day but still holding strong. Rough-looking men dragged long trawling nets filled with blue clams onto the shore and spread their catch upon the sand.
“I’ve never seen clams like those before,” Taff said.
“That’s where glorbs come from,” Lucas said. “They’re not edible, so they used to be thrown back into the ocean before someone smart figured out how to use them properly. Now they’re Nye’s Landing’s most valuable commodity. Grandfather says that’s only until the scientists figure out something new, though. Then the glorbs will be forgotten like the windmills and oil pits and empty mines. They already say there’s a man in Penta’s Keep who can bottle lightning.”
Taff, practically shaking with excitement from this sudden avalanche of information, waved his hands in front of Lucas’s face.
“Slow down,” he said. “One thing at a time.” He pointed toward the clams. “That’s where glorbs come from? The things that make the light?”
“I found it hard to believe at first too,” Lucas said. “Seems like just another kind of magic. But it’s not, really. Those clams will be sorted through, and—” Lucas paused. “Wait. That reminds me. There is someone you didn’t talk to. But it couldn’t possibly be her.”
“Why not?” Kara asked.
Lucas smiled, but there was something forced about it, a smile you rehearsed in a mirror.
“Because she’s Bethany. Come on. You’ll understand when you meet her.”
The shop sat on a large hill past the bell tower, the Windmill Graveyard like a forest of toothpicks in the distance. It was a ramshackle affair, the wooden boards chipped and peeling, with a cracked door that half hung off rusted hinges. Letters constructed from water-filled tubes glowing a soft blue read JENKINS’S GLORBS. Despite the shop’s less than desirable appearance, however, a crowd of townspeople jostled for position outside its walls. Some were trying to squeeze into the shop itself, while others seemed content just to stare through the window.
“Popular place,” Kara said. “Must sell good stuff.”
“Jenkins?” Lucas asked. “Nah. Overpriced, poor quality. Can barely power a lanter
n. Mr. Jenkins does most of his business outside town. People from Graycloud and Brenchton, don’t know any better. Most of his glorbs he grinds down, sells for Swoop fuel.”
Taff looked anxious to ask a thousand questions, but Kara placed a hand over his mouth and asked hers first.
“Why all the people then?”
“They’re here to see Bethany,” Lucas said, as though the answer were obvious. “She’s about to close up, but I’ll peek in first and tell her you need a private talk. Wish I could stay, but I have to give the Mistrals a full report about how things went today. I’m sure East is going to give me an earful.”
Lucas pushed his way through the crowd, clearly thrilled at the prospect of seeing Bethany, and Kara felt an unfamiliar twinge of jealousy. What is so great about this girl? A few minutes later a hand changed the sign in the window from OPEN to CLOSED and customers reluctantly began to shuffle out the door.
Kara and Taff entered the store.
The interior was just as drab as the exterior, the air hot and sticky and smelling of fish. Shelves stacked with glass containers of glorbs, grouped by size, lined the walls. Behind the counter stood a frumpy girl with short brown hair, brown eyes, and oily skin splotched with red.
That’s Bethany? Kara wondered. What’s so special about her? And why is Lucas so certain she’s not a witch?
Then a feeling of warmth filled Kara’s chest and she understood.
Bethany could never hurt anyone! She’s everyone’s friend. A great conversationalist. Unusually wise for her age. The funniest girl in town.
“Hello,” said Bethany. “Lucas told me you wanted to talk.”
The words were simple, but her voice rendered them as beautiful as any song.
“I love your store,” Kara said. “We don’t have glorbs where we come from. But we have corn. It’s an island!”
She stumbled over her words. Stop babbling or she won’t want to be your friend! Kara was suddenly conscious of how stupid her clothes were. Why can’t I be wearing an apron like Bethany? It looks so good on her!
“This is beautiful,” Bethany said, leaning over the counter and inspecting the shell-shaped locket Kara always wore around her neck.