by J. A. White
“It was our mother’s,” said Taff. “She died.”
Bethany nodded with the perfect amount of sympathy, and for the first time Kara felt as though someone truly understood the depths of her loss.
“It’s a terrible thing to lose someone you love,” Bethany said.
“Like Mrs. Galt,” said Taff. “She lost her son.”
Bethany reacted with surprise and . . . something else, a downward flash of the eyes that looked, strangely enough, like guilt. Except it couldn’t be, of course. What would Bethany ever have to feel guilty about?
She’s just sad for Mrs. Galt. That’s just like Bethany, always feeling the pain of others.
Bethany smiled, the moment past.
“Would you like to see something neat, little man?” she asked. “Since you don’t have glorbs where you come from?”
Taff nodded, his eyes wide with admiration. Kara could see the stirrings of a little crush there, which didn’t surprise her. Not one bit.
From behind the counter Bethany lifted a long, circular tube sloshing with water. It hung by fishing line from two wooden posts that elevated it off the counter’s surface.
“Mason Wainwright made this for me as a gift,” she said. He certainly hadn’t been the only one; on the table behind Bethany were charcoal drawings and bouquets of dried flowers and presents still wrapped in colorful paper. “It’s a model of the Swoop Line. You might have seen it on your travels. It runs all the way to Penta’s Keep.”
Kara remembered the long track, the word SWOOP etched into the metal pole.
“This works basically the same way,” Bethany said. “I just have to add the train.”
She slid what looked like a long, narrow wagon onto a bracket attached to the underside of the track. The train, as Bethany called it, had been pieced together from painted sheets of metal, red with gold trim.
“And then the glorb, of course.”
Bethany unscrewed a small section in the top of the tube and from a nearby container withdrew a glorb. Pinched in her fingers, it looked squishy and fragile, like a tapioca pearl that had been soaking for hours. She dropped the glorb inside the tube and it began to dissolve quickly, fizzing the water blue and causing it to swirl around the interior of the tube like an entrapped whirlpool.
The train started to move. Slowly at first, and then more rapidly, a steady circuit following the pull of the water.
Taff clapped his hands.
“I’m glad you like it,” Bethany said.
“It’s wonderful! But how does it work?”
“I’m not sure, exactly. The glorb magnetizes the water. I know that much, at least, but you’d need a scientist or a librarian to explain it properly.”
Taff leaned forward, his face lit by the blue glow of the water.
“Are you sure it’s not magic?” he asked.
Bethany drew back.
“Of course it’s not,” she said, her voice unexpectedly sharp. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
“I’m sorry. It just seems so impossible! Please don’t be mad! I couldn’t live if you were mad at me!”
“Magic isn’t real,” she said, smiling once again. “Everyone knows that.”
She allowed Taff to watch the train circle for a few more minutes and then told them she had to close up for the night. It was only as they left that Kara remembered they had never asked Bethany if she was a witch or not. That was all right, though. What was the point? Bethany could never hurt anyone.
They started back to the inn. Kara had no idea what they were going to do next. She was out of ideas.
“You’re quiet,” Kara told Taff.
“There’s something wrong with Isabelle.”
“What do you mean?”
He removed the doll from his pocket.
“When Bethany said, ‘Magic isn’t real,’ I felt Isabelle shake her head to say no. As though Bethany was lying. As though Bethany knew that there really was magic in the world but wanted to keep it a secret.” Taff looked up at Kara, the thought troubling him. “But Isabelle must have made a mistake, because Bethany would never lie to us, right? She’s Bethany.”
“Of course,” Kara said.
And yet she couldn’t stop thinking about Taff’s words all the way back to the inn. She remembered her false years in Imogen’s dream realm, how real they had seemed to her at the time and what it was like to be enchanted.
I’d never met the girl before and I wanted to be her best friend. I still do! It doesn’t make sense. Not without magic.
Kara was about to share her theory with Taff when Lucas came galloping up on a small brown horse. He started talking before he even slid off the saddle.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I tried to talk to them. But East said you had your chance, and all you proved was that no one in Nye’s Landing is guilty.”
“Listen,” Kara said. “I think we’ve figured it—”
“The people want someone to blame, and they have a confirmed witch in custody. East convinced the other two that it was best for the town to act. Grandfather was dead-set against it, but—the vote was three to one. Good enough.”
“Good enough for what?”
“They’ve announced that Safi is the one responsible for the unghosts,” he said, “and tomorrow they’re going to execute her.”
That night, while Lucas brought the guard on duty a mug of hot coffee as a respite from the bitter cold, Kara and Taff snuck into the Stonehouse.
Inside were three cells. The first two were empty.
“Safi?” Taff asked, pressing his face against the bars of the third one. “Are you there?”
The cell was small and dark, with a straw mattress shoved into one corner and a wooden bucket in another. Safi sat huddled against the back wall, a dark shape with her hands around her knees.
“We’re going to get you out of here,” Kara said. “Just a few more hours.”
“We know who the real witch is,” added Taff.
When Safi spoke her voice was cracked and dry.
“Did you bring my book?”
“No,” Kara said.
“You stole it from me.”
“You were going to hurt someone. I had no choice.”
In the darkness, Kara saw Safi shake her head. “The grimoire was listening to me. I had it under control.”
“You thought you had it under control. I know what that feels like. It’s a trick.”
“Those men threatened me! I didn’t start it!”
Kara curled her fingers around the cold metal bars of the cell. “You can’t use the grimoire to harm people. There’s no going back after that.”
From a dark recess of her mind rose the slow-witted face of Simon Loder, Grace’s constant companion. Kara could not remember the specifics of how she had ended the giant’s life; that particular memory had been sacrificed to build a mind-bridge back in the Thickety. The guilt and shame lingered, however, like a well-scrubbed room that still exuded the tang of blood.
“Later, even if you break the grimoire’s hold over you, you may try to tell yourself that it wasn’t your fault, that you were under the influence of a dark force. You may even start to believe it.” Warm tears blurred Kara’s vision. “But at the strangest times—when you’re by the river washing clothes, or maybe those few quiet minutes after you wake up but before you slip out of bed—the truth will make a bitter visit, and you’ll know that blaming the grimoire will never be enough, because there was a life that once existed in the world, a life that had parents and hobbies and thoughts of the future, and you are the one responsible for erasing it forever.”
Safi said nothing for a long time. And then, slowly and shakily, she got to her feet and shuffled toward Kara. Only two nights had passed, but Safi looked like she had been ill for months: her cheeks were sunken pits, her eyes dark hollows. The moonlight cast silver bars across her face.
“I had a vision,” she whispered.
“What did you see?” Kara asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Taff asked.
“Blackness. Oblivion. And then Rygoth. The moonlight follows her. She wills it to and it must listen, for she controls the light of the moons and the sun as surely as animals now. She’s walking on what should be the ground but it doesn’t sound like dirt, and it’s only when she sits down that I can see the bones supporting her weight. Mounds of them. Mountains. She’s carrying a grimoire.”
“Rygoth doesn’t need a—”
“This one’s different. It’s light red—almost pink—with flower patterns on it, like something for a little girl. The leather has been stitched together with black thread. The book was taken apart and now it is whole again. Rygoth smiles. There’s no happiness in it. There’s no evil. Just satisfaction. The kind of smile you give after you’ve fixed a creaking hinge or mopped all the floors in the house. A job-well-done kind of smile.”
Kara felt Taff pressed against her side, his tiny heart beating fast.
“What else did you see?” Kara asked. “Where is she?”
“That’s the thing,” Safi said, her eyes wide with terror. “There is no where anymore. No when. There is only Rygoth. And the silence.”
Safi returned to her spot against the back wall of the cell, closed her eyes, and wept.
Kara, Lucas, and Taff watched Bethany’s house from the shadows of the building across the road. Ocean-bit air whistled through the narrow lanes of the town, numbing Kara’s fingers.
“This is a waste of time,” said Lucas.
At first he had completely rejected the idea that Bethany could be a witch. She was Bethany. However, after Lucas was unable to come up with a good reason why he considered Bethany his best friend—could not, in fact, remember a single time they had done anything together—he admitted the possibility that something strange was going on.
“Whatever Bethany is doing to these children is giving her the power to enchant the entire town,” said Kara. “We made Bethany nervous in the store today, asked her questions she’s not used to. She’s worried about being discovered. She’ll want to take a new child tonight to strengthen her spell.”
“I just can’t imagine Bethany being evil,” Lucas said.
“I don’t think she’s evil,” Kara said. “I think she’s lost. I’m going to talk to her. Try to explain what’s going on. If that doesn’t work we’ll improvise.”
It was why she wanted Lucas there with his bow. Kara hoped they could settle this peacefully, maybe even undo the curse on the children if possible. But she had learned to never underestimate the grimoire’s hold on its victims.
They waited, their backs pressed against the cold stone of the building. Taff huddled against his sister, his eyes fluttering in an awkward half sleep. Kara raised her hands to her mouth and blew on them for warmth.
“Your turn,” she said.
“For what?” Lucas asked.
“To tell your story. How did you come to Nye’s Landing? How did you find out that West is your grandfather? Where’s the rest of your family? Mother? Father? Siblings?”
“Just Grandfather,” Lucas said. “But that’s all right. That’s more family than I ever had before. As for how I found him, that’s a dull story good for passing time and little else.”
“We have time,” Kara said.
Slouching closer, she turned her ear to Lucas—allowing him to keep his voice low—but kept her eyes on Bethany’s house.
“I traveled from town to town, working odd jobs to fill my belly the best I could and talking with as many people as would listen. Eventually I got lucky. It turns out that my mother and father were merchants slain while carting their wares from here to Graycloud. I was with them at the time—though I was just a baby, of course—and it was the vandals who sold me to the Children of the Fold, probably with my parents’ blood still fresh on their hands.” Lucas regarded his own hands, black gloved and two fingers short, as though they had been somehow responsible. “Grandfather had no idea I was still alive. He assumed that I had been killed along with his daughter and her husband.” Lucas brightened. “You should have seen his face the day we met. I’ve never seen truer happiness.”
“Now you know,” Kara said. “Your parents didn’t abandon you to a life of slavery. They really loved you.”
Lucas breathed deeply of the night air.
“I would have rather they lived.”
At that moment Bethany slipped out the front door, carefully closing it behind her so it didn’t slam shut, and lifted the hood of her brown cloak over her head. She stared down at a light gray grimoire open in her hands, like a lost traveler consulting a map, and started down the road.
“It’s leading her to the next child,” Kara said, shaking Taff awake.
“What are we waiting for, then?” Lucas asked. “We need to stop her now before she hurts someone else.”
“Not yet,” Kara said. “She might be like me or Safi, struggling against the grimoire. Or she might be like Grace. I need to know before we confront her.”
“Why?”
“Many reasons. But mostly so we know how dangerous she is.”
It would have been easier to follow Bethany had it been misty, like Kara’s first night in Nye’s Landing, but the sky was crisp and clear. They kept as far back as possible, waiting until Bethany had turned the corner of a new road before dashing to catch up, hoping not to lose her. Kara heard unghosts following at her heels, begging for attention. Though it broke her heart, she ignored them. Bethany stopped several times to rest. The more spells, the heavier the grimoire, and even though she had used only a third of the book, the added weight was significant. After one of these breaks, Bethany reversed direction and headed toward them, her pace faster, more resolute. The children scrambled for cover, thinking that they had been discovered, but Bethany suddenly stopped midstride. She turned one way, then the other. Again. Finally, she dropped the grimoire to the ground, walked several steps away, returned for it—and continued along her original path.
“Now we know,” Kara said. “If Bethany were truly heartless she wouldn’t be so indecisive. The grimoire has her in its thrall.”
“What does this change?” Lucas asked. “We still have to stop her.”
“You’re right,” Kara said. “But if I can get through to her, there’s still a chance to undo the spell on the unghosts.”
When they looked up Bethany was gone.
They ran to the next road, and the one after that, not caring so much about whether or not Bethany heard them anymore, just trying to find the girl before she finished what she had set out to do. Finally, circling back for the second time, Taff caught sight of a narrow lane they had missed, leading between two rickety houses that looked as though they had been uninhabited for some time. Bethany was kneeling at the end of the lane next to a small boy wearing sleep clothes, his hair sticking up in a misshapen clump. The pages of her grimoire, Kara noticed, were thin mirrors, the boy entranced by one of them now, gazing at his reflection with a blank look on his face as Bethany muttered strange words beneath her breath.
The boy started to fade.
Lucas immediately fired an arrow into the grimoire. The book flew out of Bethany’s hands and skittered along the lane before coming to a stop, cover down, the arrow sticking out of it like a tiny flagpole. Lucas fitted a new arrow to the nocking point of his bow, twisted a dial. The water inside the translucent shaft swirled blue and hummed with power.
“Bethany,” Kara said, stepping forward. “You have to stop.”
The girl backed toward the grimoire like a cornered animal. Taff used this opportunity to run over to the boy, who was slowly—too slowly—regaining his senses.
“Go!” Taff screamed. “Get out of here!”
The boy disappeared down the road.
“I needed him!” Bethany exclaimed, taking another step toward the grimoire. The imbedded arrow was sinking slowly into the mirror-page as though being swallowed.
Lucas steadied his bow.
<
br /> “You wanted people to like you,” Kara said. “I understand. Where I come from, I didn’t have any friends. People hated me. Despised me.”
Bethany looked up in surprise, as though someone had shouted her name across a crowded square. For a moment she seemed to forget the grimoire.
“At least they acknowledged your existence. Sometimes I wonder if my own family would even notice if I left Nye’s Landing and just kept walking.”
“We can’t choose our families,” Kara said.
“We can’t choose ourselves,” Bethany said, slapping her hand against her chest. “That’s the real problem. But things are different now. Everyone likes me!”
“Because you’ve forced them to through magic. Does that feel right?”
Bethany’s face flushed with color. “How do you know all this?” she asked.
“Because I’m a witch too. I’ve used a grimoire. I know how good it can feel. How natural. The unghosts are the grimoire’s fault, not yours. But if you don’t undo what—”
“What’s an unghost?” Bethany asked.
Kara studied the girl’s expression and saw only honest confusion.
She doesn’t know. The grimoire has kept that part of the enchantment hidden from her. This revelation filled Kara with hope, because it meant that the grimoire was afraid of what Bethany might do if she discovered the truth.
“You have to listen to me,” Kara said. “Something bad happens to the children you cast spells on.”
“What are you talking about? I just borrow a little bit of their . . . energy, I guess you’d call it. I don’t hurt them. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“The grimoire is hiding the truth from you.”
“Or you’re a liar!” exclaimed Bethany. She rocked from foot to foot, eyeing the spellbook. “Maybe you want the grimoire for yourself, witch. This could all be a trick!”
Words won’t convince her. She needs to see for herself.
“Let me show you something,” Kara said. “After that, you can take your grimoire. No one will stop you.”
Kara held out a hand for Taff’s sack of toys.
“Sorry,” she said. “I need those.”
Taff didn’t look pleased about it but handed over the sack. Kara immediately spilled its contents across the cobblestones.