Wayfarer

by Lili St. Crow

  “Mh. Barley tonight, the soup must be thick.”

  Vegetables and barley. Toni would add meat. Had the cook found another job? There was no way of telling. Had Ellie been the problem all along, and Rita and the Strep now nice and cozy because she was gone? How was Rita dealing with the Strep’s attention all on her? Did she like it?

  We all have to swim on our own. Tentatively, Ellie tried a question. “Have you ever been afraid of Twisting?”

  The old woman waved a wooden spoon, absently. “Why does the dove ask, hmm? Does Auntie seem tumbled-about to young eyes?” A flash of white teeth, and a small branch fell from her tangled white head.

  “I’ll comb your hair tonight.” Ellie pushed her chair back. “And no, I just wondered. I’ve always been afraid of Twisting.”

  “Little Columba will not Twist.” Auntie nodded, sharply. “Comb Auntie’s hair with quick fingers, yes. Sarbirin.”

  Ellie’s hand leapt up, the tiny stick in her fingers sketching a fluid charm-symbol with eldritch light. Pale in the lowering sunshine through the kitchen window, it still fluoresced just fine, and the smile that filled her cheeks didn’t feel like a mask anymore.

  “Tripaltia.”

  Another symbol.

  “Kepris.”

  It was so easy, like breathing. Potential shaped itself, and the symbols hung in the air, two stretching toward each other and the third—Tripaltia, repelling most of the Second List and all of the Third through Thirteenth except when used in subordinate position—kept them apart, straining, threads of Potential building a structure of reaction and chance around them.

  You weren’t supposed to be able to hold them in open air for very long, but it was so easy. Or it had become that way, under the old woman’s careful tutelage.

  The longer she stayed here, the more she’d learn, and the better equipped she’d be to make some sort of living. Maybe even save enough to go overWaste. She had hazy memories of the train ride, Dad catching up on his law-journal reading as the sealed carriage holding their sleeper compartment hurtled through the night. Ellie dosed with a sedative pill to make travel easier, both of them not speaking around a hurtful absence that was her mother’s shape and size—

  She caught herself, swallowing hard, and willed the stinging in her eyes to go down.

  Auntie’s wide white smile sharpened. “Good.” She nodded, and turned back to the bubbling pot on the sleek stove.

  Ellie brought her hands together, the branch—sensitized now—trapped between them. The three symbols exploded in a cascade of harmless sparks, winking out before they hit the cinnamon floor. The sapphire glinted uneasily, swirling with charmlight, but Auntie didn’t even notice. She just stirred the soup and reached for an earthenware crock by her elbow, cast a handful of pearly barley into the simmering pot. She paused, added another.

  Ellie sank back down at her place at the table. She sniffed once, hard, and the tears retreated. The scarecrow rustled again, and a flicker of motion made her head turn instinctively, her pale hair moving in a smooth shining wave, longer now.

  How long have I been here?

  It was a relief to find out it didn’t matter. If she kept moving steadily, working hard, being useful, Auntie would let her stay. After a while, the aching places inside her wouldn’t matter.

  The scarecrow’s faded eyes were blue smears, its mouth a sad downturned line. Why Auntie had the thing stuffed into the chimney corner was beyond Ellie.

  On impulse, she leaned over, tucking the scrap of wood under the scarecrow’s faded denim sleeve. The twig was sensitized by the passage of Potential, sure, and a single strand of thistledown hair was wrapped around its smooth bark. The scarecrow was looking a little thin. It could use all the stuffing she could find.

  “Bowls!” Auntie crowed, and Ellie leapt to her feet again. Funny, but she didn’t mind serving dinner here. Especially since she seemed to get it right, the way she never had for the Strep.

  The scarecrow rustled again, but there was the bread to slice and the bowls to fill, and Auntie’s silver spoon to ladle the hot soup to her watering, waiting mouth while Auntie dipped her own in thick amber honey.

  Outside, twilight deepened into night, and once Ellie made up her mind to ignore it, the world beyond the garden’s fence didn’t matter at all.

  TWENTY-THREE

  A stone spat blue and the thing hissed, its hungry ancient face splitting in a wide V to show white, white teeth. The night around her was not dark but white, each edge laden with hurtful brilliance; creeping darkness threaded through with slim grasping fingers.

  At first there was a sting at her breastbone, a pinching. Then a drowsy warmth all through her, a feathered nest, the safety of exhaustion.

  The last time she’d felt protected had been with her head resting against his neck.

  Avery? Slurred and heavy, a sleeptalker’s mumble. If this was a dream, it was a funny one. A queer draining sensation spread through her dream-body; a brushing over her dream-skin, as if she was back in Ruby’s car and the minotaur was chasing them. The streets warped like the minotaur’s Twisting, ribbons of diseased Potential rising and twining around its bone-heavy head, and as she looked down her own arms were wavering corkscrews, bones painlessly warping. Her head was heavy, drooping forward as her neck shortened and her shoulders rose, and she tried to wake up but there was no air, she could not breathe, fish-gasping, her jaws working . . .

  The thing crept away, and for a long time she didn’t know if she was awake or asleep. Until finally her body became her own again and—

  • • •

  She jolted upright, clutching the sheet and coverlet to her chest, her entire body throbbing and the sapphire sending out tiny crackling sparks that painted the walls of the gray room, bleaching it to white with sharp-cut shadows. No moonlight braved the windowpanes.

  Ellie fought for breath.

  The cottage was still and silent, breathing to itself. Blinking turned the room into shutter clicks, an alien chiaroscuro. For a few seconds she couldn’t remember just where she was, and the only thing that kept her from screaming was the hazy thought that the Strep might hear.

  She’s not here. You’re at Auntie’s.

  Her heart quit trying to throw itself out through her ribcage. Sweat dewed her skin, but she was cold. Her teeth chattered, and for a second, there was the terrifying vertiginous feeling of being . . . invisible.

  No, not invisible. Transparent. A clear pane of charmglass.

  Why should that bother me? Her heart calmed down, and slowly, slowly, she warmed up. Her teeth stopped clicking together, the shudders coming in waves instead of constantly. The waves spread out, their peaks diminishing, and after a little while she could unlock her arms from around her knees and stretch, tentatively.

  Her ribs ached. No, not ribs. A knot of pain high on the left side of her chest, and she rubbed gingerly at it. A bruise, maybe? What a weird place to be bruised. There wasn’t anything here that hurt; Auntie never even touched her unless it was a brief brush while passing a plate or a small thing to be charmed.

  When she could, she slid her legs out of bed and stood, shakily. Faint cityglow showed through the diamond windowpanes, dappled by leaf and branch shadows—though there wasn’t a tree on this side of the cottage; it had to be a charm—and made blotches on her arms and legs. She tacked unsteadily for the door, opened it, and peered out into the hall.

  I don’t feel right.

  For a hazy moment she contemplated getting her schoolbag and her uniform—Auntie had produced crisp white button-downs and plaid skirts as well as kneesocks and panties, even a bra or two and several camisoles in Ellie’s size, brushing aside her stammered attempt at gratitude, as usual—and creeping out the front door, through the trellis arch and the frilled roses, and sneaking to a phone box.

  Who would she call? Ruby, who would probably just yell at her for disappearing? Cami, who would be so worried, so helpful, so fragile? Neither of them needed Ellie dropping more problem
s in their lap, especially Laurissa-sized problems.

  Avery? The thought died as soon as it began. Another person who didn’t need problems with the Strep-Monster, and who had probably forgotten all about Ellie and her annoying habit of not meeting him or calling when she said she would.

  I’d forget me too. It would be a relief. Her shoulders sagged. Her panties were riding up, and she shut the door, standing and staring at the knob for a moment.

  Wait. I locked this. Didn’t I?

  Maybe not. She didn’t need to lock things here. Still, forgetting to do that was like forgetting to breathe.

  A wave of exhaustion crashed over her, carried her across the floor, and deposited her into the soft gray bed again. She sank down, snuggling under the covers, and the leafshadows on the ceiling were skulls and bony hands until she blinked. Then they were normal, just branches dancing on the wind.

  “I don’t ever want to leave.” Her furtive whisper took her by surprise, rippled the air like a pebble thrown into a still pond. “Not even if she throws me out.” I’m staying. I don’t care what happens. Ellie lay stiffly for a long while, watching the branches move as the hot tears trickled down her temples, vanishing into her hair.

  I won’t ever go back to Laurissa. I’ll walk into the core first. The scary thing wasn’t thinking that. It was the quiet, sure knowledge that once she started moving that direction, she wouldn’t stop.

  If the core didn’t kill her it would Twist her, because of the black scratching thing she had flung at the Strep. A curse, almost as black as Laurissa’s own work on a gaudy, loud-ticking watch. There was the wounded look on Cami’s face, too, and Ruby’s dismissal. Let her go.

  Well, they had. Now it was her turn to let her fingers unclench a bit, and just let things go too.

  When sleep finally came, there were no more dreams.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “HOLD IT SO, LITTLE COLUMBA.” AUNTIE’S SPIDERY FINGERS curled around a dandelion’s stem. “Now, pouf!”

  A symbol flashed blue-white and the plant shriveled, almost crying out as its leaves curled up and blackened. Under the flood of sunshine, Ellie shivered. “That looks unpleasant. Are you sure it won’t Twist you?”

  “No fear. See?” The stem, turning papery black, curled in a corkscrew. “A mirror does not Twist. Impossible.”

  Ellie’s eyebrows drew together. “But that . . .” She studied the ripples of Potential spreading from the charming. Is it really that simple? It can’t be, or someone would have figured it out by now. All it took was looking in the right place, and you could spin the effects of a nasty charm somewhere else. It would ripple through ambient Potential and the wave would die down, an ocean seamlessly repairing itself.

  Is that even legal?

  Who knew? A chill worked down Ellie’s back as the bees hummed their drowsy song. She rubbed at the sore spot on her chest—there was a bruise, a small dark one, maybe from a button digging in while she leaned over the rain barrel to scrub off algae. Or maybe from thrashing around during nightmares.

  Even in the sun, the breeze was suddenly cold. She didn’t have a sweater, just her Juno blazer, which hung accusingly in the tiny closet. Right next to her dusty schoolbag.

  I don’t care if I ever wear it again.

  Auntie creaked to her feet, leaving the blackened dandelion to shred itself into ash and dirt, making the garden richer. “No sunwheels, Columba. Spin, or pull the weed.”

  “Yes ma’am.” I don’t know if I can. She found another bright yellow flower, just sitting minding its own business in the middle of a riot of other things—tomato vines with hard green fruit swelling toward ripeness, leafy green potato plants, petunias, mandrake, and deadly nightshade crowding around each other with slightly embarrassing vitality.

  Aren’t you afraid of poisoning yourself, Auntie?

  Auntie is not stupid, the old lady had sniffed.

  Ellie began weeding, whispering a loosening-charm to get the juicy pungent taproot out of the dark, damp soil. The old woman hummed as she went around the corner of the house, and Ellie hunched her shoulders. I saw how she did it.

  So what’s stopping me?

  The next dandelion was a tiny runt-like one, and she felt a little sorry for it. Well, honestly, either she was going to rip it up out of the ground where it was minding its own business, or she was going to charm it to death. It would die in slow agony, wilting in the compost heap, or it could be finished quickly.

  Which was better?

  Her fingers sketched the symbol. A bright blue-white spark, and she spun the twisting down the taproot, delicately.

  The dandelion immediately shredded into a spiraling puff of ash. It was just so easy. The spreading ripples melted together, and Ellie examined her fingers.

  Garden dirt under her bitten-short nails, a cupped palm, and long slim fingers. A blur of charmlight, because she was alive, emitting Potential like everything did. Even machines exuded something, any complex system threw off little bits of energy that melded into eddies and swirls that charmers tapped into. Maybe there was just a cosmic drain backed up somewhere, something falling in and plugging it around the time of the Great War, and the whole Reeve just the energetic version of a stuck toilet.

  Which would make minotaurs . . . what? Torrents instead of swirls and eddies, or swimmers drowning in energy waste?

  The problem with metaphors was that they broke down so damn easily. Ellie cursed under her breath. She pulled three dandelions for every one she charm-killed, and carried the wilting wounded to the compost pile at the back of Auntie’s garden, a simmering mess of vegetable stew inside a white-painted cage. The hives off to her left hummed sleepily, and she cast them a nervous glance.

  There was an elm tree looming over the fence, black-barked and shifting in a cool breeze, and she tossed the dandelions in with what probably should have been a whispered charm.

  Instead, what came out was a soft “I’m sorry.”

  Apologizing to plants. I’m going to be as cracked as Auntie before long. That’d be just fine with me, too.

  “She’s talking to weeds,” someone said, and Ellie almost leapt out of her skin. “Girl’s crazy for sure.” It came from above, and as she stared, the shifting branchlight hid him for a long moment.

  “Mithrus Christ,” she breathed. “What are you doing up there?”

  “Looking for you. This was as close as I could get.” Avery Fletcher crouched on a branch that looked too spindly to hold his weight, clutching grimly at another branch, this one dead.

  “You’re going to break your neck,” she whisper-screamed. For some reason she couldn’t get in enough air to yell at him. “What is wrong with you?”

  “I could ask you the same thing. You never called.”

  You should be thanking me for not dragging you down with me. “Auntie doesn’t have a phone.”

  “Auntie?”

  “She lives here.”

  His nose wrinkled like he smelled something bad. Maybe he did, he was right above the compost. “And you do too, now, I guess? Do you know how hard it is to find this place?”

  Which meant he’d looked. A traitorous little weed of hopeful heat rose inside her chest; she quashed it as sternly as she could. “Some charmers don’t want to be found. Look, I thought of calling you, but—”

  “But what? You decided I wasn’t worth the effort?” He had twigs stuck in his gleaming hair, and his eyes were more gold than green now. For a moment he looked fey, his coloring blending into wood and leaf. “Your friends are climbing the walls. You could have let someone know where you were.”

  “Why, so Laurissa can drag me back and make a mint off . . .” She clapped her dirty hand over her mouth, trapping the secret behind her teeth.

  He just nodded, not even looking surprised. “Yeah, I pretty much figured those weren’t her work. They sold fast, though. And they dried up when you disappeared. No more Choquefort-Sinder work on the market now.”

  Yet another reason to stay as far away
from Laurissa as possible. If Fletcher had found her, someone else could—and would Auntie still want her if there was trouble?

  For a moment she thought of the Strep showing up here, and panic was a stone in her throat. What could she say? Don’t tell anyone? Should she beg? Offer him . . . what? She didn’t have anything.

  Of course, he’d never know what she did to keep him safe. Nobody would believe her if she tried telling them Laurissa was a black charmer. She was respected, even if she wasn’t liked, and she was an adult. She’d put on her sweet voice, the one she used with the boyfriends, and it would be all over.

  Her arms fell to her sides. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He had a deathgrip on that dead branch, tendons on the back of his broad capable hands standing out, and his charm-shined boots had black dirt and leaf mold clinging to them. “Also, to tell you something.”

  What would that be? She just glared at him, and he actually laughed, tossing his head back a little. Not too much, it would throw his balance off.

  When he leveled his gaze back down at her, she had her hands on her hips, not caring that she’d have to charm the dirt out of the white button-down. She was always untucked and disheveled around him, for God’s sake. It was like the entire world was conspiring to make her feel like an idiot whenever he was in sight.

  “This year’s Midsummer Ball is set for fullmoon.” He shifted a little, very carefully, and there was a sharp groaning creak from the branch he perched on. “Three days from now, at the Fletcher estate. We won the bidding; my mother’s happy as hell and the phones are ringing nonstop. I would like to invite you, Ellen Sinder, to dance with me.”

  That’s impossible. “It’s way too early in the season—” she began.

  A flash of something like anger crossed his face. “It’s the end of Junius, Ellie. You’ve been here a while.”

  Junius? But . . . oh, crap, I missed finals, and—had she really believed she was going back to Juno?