How could she have left me without a word?
I staggered to my feet and headed back outside. I'd barely made it down the stairs when the pain slid up a notch and I fell to my knees again. I reached around and touched my back. My hand came away sticky with blood.
It was worse than usual. I tried to pull the wool away to feel the skin beneath, but wool and blood and skin stuck together. Redness shimmered before my eyes.
I felt something like old sandpaper against my cheek. Tallow licked my face. Her rough tongue hurt. I pushed her away. She mewed in protest.
I couldn't work like this. Father didn't believe in numbing pain—he kept none of Jayce's whiskey on hand. I forced myself to my feet and stumbled down the path toward Kate's door, Tallow at my heels. Matthew's grandmother didn't have whiskey, either, but she did have a cupboard full of teas and herbs. She'd have something for the pain. And she'd be home: her knees had grown too weak for her to help with the harvest.
I hesitated, then knocked and nudged the door open just as Kate called at me to enter. She sat on a stool in front of her loom, her hands in her lap as she stared at a half-finished bolt of reddish-brown cloth. Her long gray hair was twisted into a tidy bun. Across the room, a low fire burned in her fireplace.
“Hello, Liza.” She turned, smiling, to face me, but her smile tightened into a hard line as she looked me over. “What did he do this time?”
“It's nothing.” Even shaking my head hurt. Bad enough I'd angered Father; I shouldn't have come here and let Kate see. I never let anyone see, for all that Kate always seemed to know anyway. “I just wanted to borrow some tea.” My voice came out hoarser than I'd expected.
Kate stood, wincing at the weight on her knees. A wave of dizziness made me stagger. Kate laid her hand on my arm, leading me toward the couch. I sighed and sat down. Kate gently pulled the sweater away from my skin and over my head. She drew a sharp breath, ordered me to lie on my stomach, and examined my back with gentle, probing fingers, pausing each time I flinched. I tried to sit up, but she laid a firm hand on my shoulder.
She disappeared into the kitchen, returning a few moments later with a teakettle in one hand and a basket full of clay bottles and coarse bandages in the other. She placed the kettle on the fire, then knelt by my side and soaked a bandage with liquid. If her knees ached now, she gave no sign, saying only, “This might sting a little, but we have to clean you up before infection sets in.”
The liquid didn't sting—it burned. I tried not to cry out, but again couldn't help myself. Unlike Father, Kate said nothing, just ran her fingers through my hair, a little like Mom had done when I was small.
After the burning liquid came a thicker salve. Numbing coolness dulled the pain. Kate wrapped bandages over the salve. She warned me to keep the skin covered, then helped me sit up and offered me a clean sweater. I pulled it on as the kettle began to boil.
Kate poured me some tea. I sipped the bitter liquid as she looked me over, her mouth still set in that tight line. “Better?”
I nodded. “Thank you. I can work now.” Even my voice seemed steadier. I tried to stand, but again Kate stopped me.
An unreadable expression crossed the old woman's face. “Wait here,” she said abruptly, and disappeared down the hall. I heard the stairs creak as she climbed. She mostly slept downstairs and let Matthew, who lived with her now, do the climbing.
I finished the tea and stood, with less pain this time. I walked slowly around the room, looking at Kate's colorful wall hangings and at a bookcase filled with yellowed volumes. As I stepped past her loom something bright glinted beside it. One of the hangings had fallen askew. I drew it back and saw a rectangle of glass, taller than I was, set in a frame decorated with gold flowers. No, not glass—a mirror. I'd never seen a mirror intact before. They'd all been broken during the War; no one ever said why. I'd hardly seen glass at all, save for shards clinging to empty window frames and a few old drinking glasses. The mirror cast back an impossible, perfect reflection, clear as if I'd stepped outside of myself. The girl who stared back at me seemed a stranger: dark hair falling around her shoulders, dark eyes large in her sun-browned face, leather pants grown short about her ankles. I turned away, embarrassed by my own shy gaze. Yet after only a moment I glanced back, wanting to check what I'd seen, to remember who I was.
As I looked, the image in the mirror wavered and flowed away in rivulets of light. In the brightness left behind, I saw—
Myself, not in Kate's home but by the river that morning, my hand poised above a bucket filled with light—
My mother, hair tied back from her weary face, slipping out into the night—
A pale-haired young man, clearly touched by magic, walking through a sun-drenched forest. He showed no fear as a hawk flew through the leaves and landed on his outstretched wrist—
My sister, breathing her first cries while the midwife shook her head—
A girl walking through the night, her hair trailing in the wind. A girl who, for just a moment, turned, revealing a face like mine, only her hair was streaked pale as glass—
I tore my gaze from the mirror and threw my hands up to my face. Faerie magic. Cursed magic. Magic showing me the past, showing me things I'd never seen. My hands shook as I pressed them against my eyes. There was no denying now that magic had taken root somewhere inside me, perhaps on the night I'd gone out after Rebecca, perhaps weeks, months, or years before.
I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see Kate clutching a small jar in one hand. “Liza.” Her soft voice reminded me of the touch of her fingers through my hair.
Had she seen my pale roots? Had she seen the visions in the mirror? I didn't know. But I did know that Cam's magic had destroyed Kate's family. Would my magic kill, too?
No, not if I could help it. No one would die from my magic but me. I turned from Kate's pitying gaze and ran.
“Wait!” Kate stumbled after me, but she was too slow. I fled from my town and the fields I'd known all my life. I fled into the woods and didn't look back.
Chapter 4
When Father taught me to hunt he said, “Never show fear. Animals and plants can sense fear in your every move. They can smell fear with your every breath.”
I'd asked him whether that was because of the War, but he'd only laughed softly. “No, Liza. That much has always been true. Difference now is that hunter and hunted look much the same. You can never be sure which is which, not until the hunt is through.” Plants hadn't been among the hunters Before, but Father didn't need to say that.
I didn't feel like much of a hunter: not when I reached the river and followed it at a run, not hours later when Kate's salve had worn off and my throbbing back forced me to a walk, not now as the sun dipped below the horizon. Tallow trotted along beside me, unafraid. She'd followed as I fled, and though I'd tried to send her home, in truth I was glad of her company. The cat had ridden on my shoulders much of the day, until they'd grown too sore. I'd taught her to ride there years ago, when she was a kitten.
I kept to the center of the path, barely out of reach of the ragweed along its edges, but it wasn't the ragweed that worried me most. Father had taught me well—I knew I was being followed. My pursuer had been with me the past mile, maybe longer. Ferns and brambles rustled as they shied away from distant footfalls. Ash and redbud and oak whispered softly as those footfalls passed by. And I felt something watching me from within the deepening shadows, felt it with a certainty that made cold sweat trickle down my neck.
Don't venture out alone into the dark, or the darkness will swallow you whole. Even when the sun shone, a tree could take a grown man down if it had taste enough for blood. When the sun set, shadows gathered around the trees and around the other plants, too, not always, but often enough. Not just the ordinary shadows that gather everywhere as the sun gets low—these were darker, with a slow thickness like tree sap, and they didn't go away once the sun set. Even in the dark, shadow vines crept along the ground and shadow branches slashed at the air.
Those tree shadows cut deeper than ordinary branches and brambles. Jayce still walked with a limp because a pokeweed shadow had cut him to the bone when he stayed out too late on a hunt.
Yet I thought what hunted me now was human. Someone from my town, sent to find me. I thought—but couldn't be sure. I shivered in the fading light. If plants and animals could smell fear, mine left them an easy trail. A few wild grapevines crept tentatively toward the path. If I called them the way Cam had called, would they sense my magic and come to me? I walked faster, beyond their reach.
Something moved among the trees, closer than before. Tallow's ears perked forward. The something rustled through the brush, veering toward the river. Toward me. Its steps were faster, more sure than they'd been before.
I ran once more. The rustling thing ran, too, matching my pace. The path between forest and river narrowed. If only I could leap above water and wood into the evening sky, the way the airplanes did Before—but I could merely run harder as the water grew near.
Mom sang stories from Before sometimes, faerie songs from a time when only a very few people knew the faerie folk were real. In some of those songs running water stopped magic, just as cold iron did. Iron hadn't helped the airplanes—magic brought them down long ago. But water was different. If the water flowed swiftly enough, neither plants nor magic could get a hold in its depths. I turned and ran off the trail, through a small hickory grove, and down the rocky bank into the river. I gasped as icy water washed over my boots and soaked through my wool socks, but kept moving into deeper water. Mud sucked at my feet and I stumbled, struggling to right myself against the current.
Even as I did, the water around me went abruptly still. That water had risen nearly to my waist. It soaked through my clothes and chilled my skin. I stumbled again and stared. The air had gone very quiet. Near the far shore the river flowed on, but around me nothing moved. Even my pursuer was silent. Tallow stared at me from the near bank, silent as well.
A flash of light drew my gaze downward. The water around me began to shine like a giant mirror. I fled that magic the only way I could, by shutting my eyes and diving beneath the surface. Perhaps if I didn't look, the magic would pass me by and seek someone else to root in instead.
Or I could stay beneath the surface. I could let myself drown and hope the magic died with me—but even as I thought that, I burst into the air, coughing and gasping for breath. My boots were heavy with water, and my wet clothes clung to my cold skin. The river around me had stopped glowing. I swam for shore and as I did the current started up again, pulling at my clothes and dragging me down. I swam harder, then stood and staggered on. Another few steps and I'd be on land.
A rock slipped beneath me and I fell into a hole of deeper water. I reached out blindly even as my head went under. My arms and legs ached with weariness. I really was about to drown, whether I wanted to or not.
Someone grasped my wrists, hard.
That firm grip was enough for me to find solid footing and break through the surface once more. I clambered, splashing onto the bank, gulping air. Behind me the river murmured quietly, just a river, nothing more.
“Liza.”
I looked up. “Matthew.” His hair was coming loose, and a dead maple leaf had gotten caught in it.
“You nearly drowned.” Matthew's voice shook. Sweat trickled down his face in spite of the chilly air. “Are you all right?”
Kate must have sent him after me. She ought to have known better than to send anyone. I stood, shivering. Tallow had moved out of range of my splashing. She licked the mud from her fur.
Twilight cast shadows on Matthew's pale face. He ran his hand over his hair, found the leaf, and drew it free. “I brought you food,” he said as he threw the leaf into the water. “Dry clothes. Flint and steel for a fire.”
“No.” My teeth chattered. My feet were ice, my fingertips tingling. “You need—to go. To get—away— from me.”
“Liza.” Matthew's voice was low but firm, a little like his grandmother's. “I'm going to gather wood for a fire. You'll feel better once you're warm. Okay?”
Nothing could make this okay, but Matthew reached into the backpack beside him, pulled out a blanket, and draped it over my shoulders. Next he drew out a clay jug filled with oil and used a spark from his flint to light the wick within. I drew closer to that small circle of light.
Matthew took out a torch next, lit it from the lamp, and slung a nylon bag for gathering wood over his shoulder. He left me the lamp and retreated into the forest, his torch flickering among the trees. The night shifted from gray to black, and the moon rose as he searched the ground for dead wood.
Didn't he know better than to gather firewood alone at night? Didn't he know better than to risk his life for a magic-cursed girl?
But maybe Kate hadn't told him about my magic. I'd have to tell him as soon as he returned. Matthew didn't deserve to suffer from whatever harm my magic might bring.
Matthew gripped the branch he used to stir the fire. By the orange firelight, I could see his fear, the fear Father taught me always to hide. It showed in the hunch of his shoulders and the way the branch trembled in his hand. Between us embers cracked and popped, the green at the heart of even fallen wood slow to burn. Tallow was curled beside the fire, asleep. At the edges of the path, branches bent away from the flames, fearing their heat. I scanned the dark leaves for tree shadows but saw none.
Something howled in the night. The cat opened her eyes and raised one ear. Wild dogs, I thought. Trees and their shadows weren't the only danger here.
Matthew lifted a metal mug from the fire, holding it carefully by the leather-wrapped handle. “Here. You need to get something warm into you.”
Wearing dry clothes, wrapped in Matthew's blanket, I'd finally stopped shivering. Steam rose from the mug, the scent of mint and lemon balm mixing with that of smoke and wet wool. Some night creature screamed and fell silent in a flurry of leaves. The wild dogs howled again, a little closer. Matthew set the mug down at my feet and poked the fire with his branch. Sparks leaped into the air, turned to ash, and softly fell. Matthew looked at me as if unsure whether to speak.
I looked away. “You need to go,” I said.
Matthew laughed uneasily. “And venture out alone into the dark? What would your father say?” I think he meant it as a joke, but I saw nothing funny about it. A moth flew toward the fire and through the flames. It flew out again with the veins in its gray wings glowing orange. Moths were drawn to light and always took some away with them when they found it.
I stood and pulled the blanket around me like a cloak, ignoring the pain that stiffened my back. “Cast out the magic born among you,” I said slowly, “before it can turn on its parents.”
Matthew took a small metal pot from his pack and silently filled it with water from a plastic bottle. Tallow stretched and sniffed the air. Matthew lifted his head, as if whatever Tallow smelled, he smelled, too.
“You know what happened to my sister.” The wind picked up with a mournful sound like a baby's cry.
Matthew's frightened look hardened into something else. His eyes narrowed as he set the pot on the fire. “What your father did. He had no right.” Matthew's voice was low and fierce. His lips drew back from his teeth.
“He had every right. And now it's happening to me.”
“I know.” Matthew took cornmeal from a leather pouch and added it to the pot. He lifted his head, and his gray eyes seemed to reflect distant light—not firelight, more like the moon rising through the trees.
I looked away from him, down to the bubbling pot. Light reflected off its metal surface, and as I watched, the metal grew bright—just like the water and the mirror behind Kate's loom. I tried to turn away, but my gaze was held fast, and in the brightness I saw—
Myself, fleeing the town I'd known all my life, while behind me Kate called, “Wait—”
A pale young man walking through a forest, not alone this time but with a dark-haired young woman— my age—smili
ng by his side. Sun turned the leaves green-gold and made the air around them shimmer—
A land of steel and glass, of towers and sharp angles. A sky the color of dried blood. Shadows reaching like grasping branches for the towers. The towers shuddered and crumbled to dust, while beyond them a broad river flowed swiftly on, its waters muddy and deep—
Mom gazing at me through water, through a curving wall of silver light. Mom whispering, “Lizzy, my baby, my girl. Stay hidden, Liza; stay safe—”
I stared at her sad eyes, reached for her hand—
—and screamed as hot metal burned me. Matthew yanked my arm from the heated pot, even as I fought to reach for that heat—for my mother—once more.
“Mom!” I cried, but he didn't let go. Blisters rose on my fingers. I felt pain, but it seemed a distant thing, less real than the images I'd seen.
Matthew held me until I stopped struggling and sank wearily beside the fire. He pressed a cool cloth against my burned fingers. The metal pot reflected orange firelight, nothing more. Mom was gone.
Cornmeal boiled over into the fire, but Matthew didn't move to pull the pot away. Tallow butted my knee with her head, and I absently shoved her back. “What did you see?” Matthew asked.
I didn't want to put the images into words. That would make them more real—or less. “Nothing,” I said.
Matthew shook his head, dismissing my answer. “Gram thought you saw something in her mirror, even though she couldn't see it for herself. I couldn't see anything, either, but only someone in the grip of magic would reach toward a fire as if she didn't know it was there.”
“How would you know?” My blisters throbbed. My back still ached. How badly would I have been burned if Matthew hadn't pulled me away?
In the woods the howling grew louder. Matthew hesitated, then said, “You're not the only person I've known with magic.”
“Yes, but all the others are dead.” The words came out before I could stop them. My sister. His brother. An unnamed baby with a bird's sharp claws. Other babies, born to other women, one every few years since the War.
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