by J. A. White
Finally, the craft started to move. Abby found them a seat as far away from the others as possible. Their only companion was the old woman from the forest, her train of paper spilling across the floor of the barge.
“That’s Landra,” Abby said. “I wouldn’t worry about her, poor thing. She’s too far gone to hear us anymore. It won’t be long for her now. Just one more strip, maybe two. Then they’ll take her to the Changing Place and she’ll become one of them.”
“She won’t be a person anymore?” Taff asked with a horrified expression. “Not even underneath the paper?”
Abby shook her head.
“Just a mindless monster like the rest of them. The Well will lose her thoughts, of course, but she’ll help keep the Cutters cutting, the Whisperers whispering. Efficient, no?”
The craft moved faster than Kara had first anticipated. This river was different than the last one, more like cloudy water than pulp. Words waded along its surface, keeping pace with the barge: I acted like I didn’t know where they were hiding so it would last longer. He was beautiful, even after I turned him to glass. I wish I remembered what it was like to be hungry.
Seeing how Kara’s gaze followed the words, Abby said, “Food for the Spellfire. Our thoughts. Not all of them, of course. Memories. Wants. Fears. The ones it can use. The other thoughts, the day-to-day ones, aren’t strong enough to be used for fuel. They follow the Sludge to the forests downstream and make the trees grow.”
“What’s the Spellfire?” asked Kara.
“That’s our main duty here—to keep its flames raging. Remember how you told me that Phadeen drained witches’ souls and used them to power the grimoires?”
I didn’t tell you, Kara thought. My mother did.
She nodded anyway.
“You were close, but it’s not exactly like that. There’s no such thing as a soul. At least, not the way you were thinking of it, as this exhaustible life force that could be mined for energy. The true soul is both simpler than that and far more complex. It’s the memories and experiences and feelings that make us who we are. This is what the Spellfire takes. It feeds best on the darker thoughts, of course. Plenty of those to go around in a place like this. Some witches remember their days of evil with fondness; others despair over the things they have done. The Spellfire isn’t picky. It can use both. A source of energy that constantly replenishes itself.”
They had arrived at the rose wall, as sheer and mountainous as the first one but with a large gate at its base. This was guarded by a Faceless wearing a gray authoritative mask, strands of confetti dangling from its chin in a mockery of a beard. The Faceless shifted a lever that lifted the paper-trellised gate, and the barge passed beneath the wall and into a new area.
Kara heard Taff gasp.
Perhaps they had only been on the outskirts of the Well of Witches, for the world that stretched before Kara now was infinitely larger. The sky and the ground still resembled parchment, but they were darker, as though they had been formed from pulp mixed with coffee grounds. In the center of all this sameness spiraled a funnel of black fire that shot upward, disappearing through a hole in the sky.
It made no sound.
“The Spellfire,” Kara said. She noticed that the sky closest to it was blackened and shriveled, like paper held too close to a flame. “Is that where these trees are going?”
Abby nodded.
“To feed its flames,” she said. “The thoughts you see scurrying beneath the ground are useless until they’re burned.”
“And then they turn into magic?” asked Taff.
“Not at all,” said Abby. “The Spellfire powers the Well’s hold on the grimoires, its ability to tempt future witches and draw them further toward darkness. It cannot create magic, only focus a girl’s natural ability.”
“And turn it evil.”
Abby absently stroked her neck.
“You speak true,” she said.
In time they came to a fork in the river. The ships packed with the most trees continued toward the Spellfire, while Kara’s barge and several others followed the alternate route. Around Kara the other witches engaged in hushed conversation about various aches and pains they had been experiencing—crimped necks, sore backs—and who would be the next to turn into a Faceless after Landra. It’s like I’m back in De’Noran, listening to the farmers talk about weather and the local gossip. She almost laughed. No matter what the situation, people would always find a way to pass the time with idle conversation.
Kara was half dozing, her downturned head bobbing with the motion of the raft, when she heard shouts of surprise. She opened her eyes and saw that they had just passed through another gate, the Spellfire now concealed from view. This section of the Well was mustier than the others and smelled of old books.
I must have slept longer than I thought.
Around her, witches were pointing into the sky, the arms of their red robes sliding down bone-thin arms. Kara followed their fingers to three charcoal smears like small, dirty clouds in the parchment sky.
“What the heck are those?” Taff asked.
“We call them Burngates,” said Abby. “Their appearance means that new witches will be arriving soon. After they cast their Last Spells, their grimoires will open and allow them passage into our world. For a few moments, we will all be granted a sliver of real sky, possibly even a taste of sunlight. Witches will travel from all the different parts of the Well to see it. There is nothing more exciting.”
Abby smiled at the thought, and Kara suddenly remembered how she had fed her uncooked dough when Mother turned her head.
“How does the Well know that new witches are coming?” Taff asked. “Can it see the future?”
Abby shook her head. “No, but the Spellfire knows all about its grimoires. There are at least three out there that are nearing completion. The Last Spells can be expected soon. Still, we usually only see one Burngate at a time. Three is unprecedented. And so close together!”
Kara and Taff exchanged nervous glances.
“There’s going to be a great battle,” Kara said. “Between an army of witches and an army of men. Could that be the cause?”
“Possibly,” Abby said. She whistled softly. “Three Last Spells. I wouldn’t want to be a soldier in that army.”
And those are just regular witches. Who knows what horrors Rygoth herself has planned? The graycloaks are going to be slaughtered.
Father.
Lucas.
“How long before these Burngates open up?” Taff asked.
“The usual measures of time have no place here,” Abby said. “A day? Maybe two? Soon the ground will rise to meet them, allowing the chosen to climb up and pull the new witches down into the Well.”
Too soon. We’ll never be able to find Grace and escape in time. The thought drained all the energy from her body, which was why she was so surprised to see a big grin plastered across Taff’s face.
“What?” she asked.
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know.”
He whispered in her ear, “Gates open both ways.”
She reconsidered the black smears in the sky. Why not? If a Burngate could allow a new witch to enter the Well, then Kara and Taff could use it to leave.
They docked shortly afterward. Abby pulled them behind a cracked fountain, a once-stunning remnant of Phadeen with small snatches of stone still peeking out through the paper facade.
“This is where we part ways,” Abby whispered. “There’s another forest up ahead and much work to do. The Spellfire burns low these days.” She leaned closer to Kara and pointed into the distance. “Wait until you see the backs of the Faceless and then run that way and keep on running. Eventually you’ll come to a garden. Your friend will be there.”
“A garden?” Taff asked dubiously.
“You’ll know it when you see it,” Abby said. “You’ll be safe from the Faceless, at least. They are not allowed there.”
“Why not?” asked Taff.
“Whisperers must not be disturbed. They need complete and total concentration.”
The last of the Cutters disembarked from the barge. The group started toward the forest.
“I have to go,” Abby said.
“Come with us,” Kara whispered. “We’re going to escape this place.”
“Oh, Helena. It means so much to me that you would even ask. But I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because this is where I deserve to be.”
“That’s not true. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
The words brought instant tears to Abby’s eyes.
“Do you mean that?”
Kara wondered if she truly did. Yes, the grimoire had been at fault, but without this woman her mother would still be alive.
Except Abby doesn’t think you’re Kara right now. She thinks you’re Helena. The real question is: What would Mother do?
The answer came easily.
“You’re my friend,” Kara said. “You always will be. I forgive you.”
Abby smiled.
“Thank you,” she said, hugging Kara tight. “That means so much. The trouble is—I can’t forgive myself.”
Abby slipped out of Kara’s grasp and joined the other witches. They formed two lines and vanished around a nearby bend, their paper strips dragging along the ground.
The ground crinkled beneath their feet like a schoolmaster crumpling dissatisfactory work into a ball. Kara’s thoughts etched themselves into a torrent of curlicued worries: What if we can’t find Grace? What if she won’t come with us? What if the Burngates open before we’re ready?
Their footsteps grew muffled as the surface began to change, Kara’s thoughts vanishing beneath a thin layer of soil that looked and felt like pencil shavings.
Taff stopped moving.
“Listen,” he said.
Hushed voices drifted in their direction. It was difficult to distinguish how many people were whispering at once. It might have been only a handful. It could have been hundreds. Following the sound, the children crept to a rise so unnaturally sharp it was as though the ground itself had been folded and creased.
They scaled it on their forearms and peeked over the edge.
A cold sun had been sketched across the parchment sky. Beneath it stretched a garden of paper flowers immaculately folded into irises and soneybuds, roses and lannies. Despite the lack of color the garden could have been beautiful in its way, were it not for the black-cloaked girls whispering to its flowers.
“What are they doing?” Taff asked.
“Nothing good.”
Kara lifted both legs over the peak and slid to the other side. She inched closer to a paper chrysanthemum and the girl stretched along the ground before it, who was about fifteen with bushy hair and a nose that looked as though it had been broken at some point. The girl’s eyes were closed, and she seemed completely unaware of Kara’s presence. Kara caught snippets of the words she whispered: “Wake up, Claudia. Wake up. How can you sleep when such wonders await you? Just one spell. A small one.”
Kara looked down at the chrysanthemum and saw the witch’s final words—“Just one spell. A small one.”—scrawled within the folds of its paper petals. The chrysanthemum seemed to breathe in and the words vanished.
Where did they go? she wondered.
Kara didn’t understand, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to understand. She took Taff’s hand and led him onward. There was all manner of paper flowers in the garden—roses, canadrils, sunflowers, and many other species that Kara didn’t recognize—but one thing remained consistent: the words spoken by the Whisperers were inscribed into the petals and quickly vanished. After a while Kara stopped looking at the flowers, but she couldn’t escape the whispers: “They deserve it. . . . Think about how much fun it will be. . . . This is what you’re made for. . . . Just peek inside the grimoire and see what’s waiting for you. . . .”
Kara realized the purpose of the garden.
She was surprised by how angry she felt. She had certainly never imagined witches as being members of a loyal sisterhood, obligated to help one another simply because of the power they shared, but this still felt like the worst sort of betrayal.
And Grace is a part of it. Why am I not surprised?
“What is it?” Taff asked, sensing her malaise.
“These flowers allow the Whisperers to communicate with witches in Sentium,” Kara said. “Each flower connects to a specific grimoire in the real world. That lets the Whisperer speak directly to the mind of the witch who has that grimoire, especially while they’re sleeping. Tempt them into using magic, draw them further into darkness.”
“I thought the grimoire did all that.”
“So did I.” Kara shook her head. “When it comes to magic, it feels like I’m never going to stop being wrong.”
It was bad enough when she had thought it was the grimoire trying to corrupt her, but the idea of a real person inside her head was even worse. Kara scanned the garden, wondering if her Whisperer was still here, or maybe a flower with her face on it, the petals wilted from disuse?
She heard a familiar voice, honey smooth with a hint of playful arrogance.
“Remember that calico cat you passed by the river?” the voice asked. “You convinced yourself it was just sleeping, but we both know better, don’t we? Little Kitty is gone, gone, gone! But don’t worry—you can still fix it! In fact, you can make that mangy old fur ball into something exciting and new! What possible harm could come from such a helpful little spell?”
Kara followed the voice to a red lily. Grace lay beneath the flower, her closed eyelids fluttering with concentration. A paper bow secured her white hair in a neat ponytail.
“Get up,” Kara said, squeezing her arm.
Grace’s eyes opened. They were even bluer than Kara remembered. She stared at Kara for a long time before rising to a sitting position, a few errant strays of white hair falling over her eyes, and hesitantly touched Kara’s cheek.
“Are you real?” she asked.
“It’s me.”
“It’s been a long time, I think. I don’t know actually. I don’t . . . The days slide together because there are no days. Or nights. Is my father still dead? I suppose he is. You can’t change things like that. I think you might hate me, Kara. Yet sometimes when my mind is my own I remember us as being great friends. Should we hug?”
“We’re not friends, Grace. We never were. We never will be.”
Kara’s statement was like a bucket of ice thrown in Grace’s face, shocking her memory into working.
“Ahh,” she said. “That’s right. But how did you get here? Wait—I know. You cast your Last Spell and this time it wasn’t all magical fire and fluttery little bird pages. You were dragged into the Well of Witches just like I was.”
“Actually, I haven’t used a grimoire since our battle.”
“Our battle,” Grace said. A smile lit up her beautiful face and she clapped her hands beneath her chin. “That was grand, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t remember it that way.”
“Then you don’t remember it.”
There were dark circles under Grace’s eyes and her cheeks were gaunt. The tone of her voice remained the same as always, however, as though she understood a joke that would always be lost on the rest of the world.
“If you didn’t cast your Last Spell,” Grace asked, “then how are you here?”
“I came a secret way.”
“You came to this place of your own accord? Why?”
“To rescue you.”
Grace released a short sharp yelp of laughter.
“I find that difficult to believe.”
“Imagine how we feel,” muttered Taff.
“Oh, look,” Grace said, noticing Taff for the first time. “You brought the whelp.”
“Maybe rescue is the wrong word,” Kara said. “This is nothing more than a simple exchange. We help you escape, but in return you need to
undo the spell on my father and send Timoth Clen back to his grave.”
Grace rose to her feet, using a tightly rolled paper staff to support her bad leg. The ring on the back of her cloak had only a single paper strip tied to it.
“You truly plan to escape?” she asked.
“Yes,” Kara said. “And you can come with us, leave this place forever. You just have to undo Father’s spell when we get back to the real world. After that, you’re on your own. We’ll never see each other again.”
“You’d really give me a grimoire to use?” Grace asked dubiously. “After everything I’ve done?”
“A page. No more.”
At first Kara thought that Grace might refuse, but even the possibility of casting a single spell again was enough to rekindle the embers of her obsession. Her eyes burned an intense shade of blue difficult to look upon.
“Can I see it?” she asked, grasping Kara’s forearm. “Do you have it with you?”
“No,” Kara lied.
Grace nodded, though Kara could tell she didn’t quite believe her.
“Tell me your plan for this great escape,” Grace said. “Are we using this secret entrance you spoke of?”
Kara shook her head. “It’s been closed to us.”
“We’re going through the Burngates!” exclaimed Taff.
Grace regarded him with a flat, unreadable expression.
“The Burngates,” she said.
“There’re three of them in the sky right now,” continued Taff. “All we have to do is wait until they open up and slip through. I figure everyone will be so distracted by the new witches that they won’t notice us.”
“That makes sense,” said Grace. “It’s amazing that no one has ever thought of that before. It seems so obvious.”
“So you’ll come with us?” Kara asked.
Grace shrugged.
“The restoration of your father seems like a small price to pay for my freedom. Why not?”