“Why’d you marry him then?”
She shrugged and looked at the man. “He was next in line.”
That was how people got married in the clearings; they married whoever was next in line.
“Anyway, trolls got him and the boy both. People went looking, and they found the tracks.”
“They got him,” said Jinx, his anger deflating as he remembered Bergthold-the-troll’s arm. “They didn’t get me.”
“And you’ve done right well for yourself. Nice clothes, fancy talk, and an evil wizard to look after you. If you are a servant and not some rich man’s son. So what are you complaining about?”
Jinx didn’t know what to say. Standing in the squalid, cabbage-smelling hut with the rain beginning to leak through the thatch in one corner, it was hard to complain because he’d been forced to leave it and go live with Simon. Cottawilda and Bergthold hadn’t known Simon would come along—trolls or werewolves were a much more likely outcome—but Jinx found he didn’t feel like arguing the point. And he certainly wasn’t going to point out that Simon had taken his magic.
The thing was, had his magic been too high a price to pay? Yes, it had. And yet Jinx was very glad he didn’t live like this.
The man on the bed cleared his throat. “I don’t need no wizards around my family. I think you should leave.”
“We’ll leave when it stops raining,” said Reven easily. “We haven’t come to harm anyone. We’re just travelers in need of shelter, which we’ll pay for.”
Jinx watched the expression on Cottawilda’s and her husband’s faces change. Jinx was getting better at understanding faces.
“We’ll feed you all for a farthing,” said Cottawilda.
“And let us stay the night,” said Elfwyn.
There were nervous looks from Cottawilda and her husband at this. Jinx didn’t really want to stay the night, but the rain looked like the kind that stays around for a while, and he didn’t want to sleep outside in it.
He jerked a thumb at Reven. “He’s paying.”
The next morning Jinx walked around the clearing, which was bright with sunlight and raindrops. People gathered in clumps to stare at him. Word of the flying ladle had gotten around. He saw people he recognized, some of whom he had never thought of once in the years he’d been gone. There must be people missing, because of the werewolves and the winter plague that Simon had mentioned, but Jinx couldn’t tell who they were.
Nobody seemed to recognize him. He spoke to a few people who should have. They didn’t remember him. Most of them shied away from Jinx and his companions, though, suspicious of strangers and of anything that came out of the Urwald.
He had hoped—well, maybe hoped was too strong a word, but somewhere in the back of his mind had been the idea that since he had first had the magic of seeing people’s thoughts in Gooseberry Clearing, maybe it would come back to him here. It did not.
“Everything must seem smaller to you, eh?” said Reven, walking beside him. “I’ve heard that happens when you go back to where you were little.”
“Yeah,” said Jinx. Actually, everything seemed dingier, poorer, drabber, sadder. He wanted to get away from the place.
A girl a little older than Jinx was standing beside a hut, watching them.
Reven smiled at the girl and she stared back blankly.
“Inga,” Jinx remembered. “You’re Inga, right?”
“How do you know my name, wizard boy?” the girl asked, suspicious.
“You—” Jinx stopped. Inga used to hit him, and had once held his face down in the mud in a pigsty. Jinx decided not to mention this in front of his new friends. “I remember you from when I was little.”
“Do you know the way to Dame Glammer’s house?” asked Elfwyn.
“Dame Glammer … you mean a witch?” said Inga.
“Yes.” Elfwyn seemed to sense that it wouldn’t be a good idea to say the witch was her grandmother. “We’re on our way there, but we got lost.”
“You shouldn’t go to a witch’s house,” said Inga. “You should stay home in your own clearing. It’s dangerous to go places.”
“Even if you stick to the path,” Jinx said.
He was being sarcastic. It made him sad that Inga nodded in agreement. He couldn’t believe that he’d once let himself be held facedown in a pigsty by a girl who was afraid to leave Gooseberry Clearing.
Anyway, she wouldn’t be able to do it to him now—she was taller than him, but he bet he was stronger.
Except maybe he wouldn’t have been strong if he’d been stuck here, subsisting on toad porridge and cabbage soup. And he wouldn’t even be able to read! It was unthinkable. If he’d stayed here, he wouldn’t be himself.
Anyway, they hadn’t wanted him. They’d made him leave the path.
And I never even thanked them, Jinx thought.
16
Curses
When they left Gooseberry Clearing behind, Jinx felt as if a troll-sized weight had been lifted from him. He was disappointed he hadn’t learned anything about his lost magic there. But he was relieved that everyone had forgotten him. He wasn’t from there anymore. He was from Simon’s house.
Whatever Simon’s faults, at least he wasn’t drab and drizzly.
They’d been walking all day, cheerful and not thinking much at all about the thing the trees were afraid of (which Reven had named the Terror).
“Is that really where you were born, Jinx?” said Elfwyn.
“Yup.”
“Well, it’s certainly …” Elfwyn trailed off, then tried again. “Certainly very …”
“Wretched,” said Jinx.
“I don’t blame you for going and being apprenticed to an evil wizard,” said Reven.
“He’s not evil,” said Jinx. After all, Simon was the Bonemaster’s enemy, so surely that meant he must be good. Of course, he’d done a horrible spell on Jinx. But maybe Simon didn’t really understand how horrible it had been. He was kind, mostly, wasn’t he? Taken all in all? “Anyway, I didn’t have a choice. My stepparents kicked me out because they had a new baby.”
“Ermengarde?” said Reven.
“No—who’s Ermengarde?”
“The child in the hut,” said Reven.
Jinx thought. “How old is Ermengarde?”
“Three,” said Reven.
“Couldn’t be her, then. She’s not old enough.”
“I wonder what happened to your stepsister, then,” said Reven.
“She must have died,” said Elfwyn. “Or else they abandoned her in the forest too.”
Jinx had the feeling he should’ve asked. But he had just never thought about the baby stepsister—Gertrude, that was her name. “I think this is the path.”
This time he really did recognize the path to Dame Glammer’s house. As they turned onto it, Jinx had a funny feeling that someone was watching him.
“I’m supposed to stop at the bridge and call her,” said Elfwyn.
“Maybe we should wait till morning,” said Reven. It was getting dark.
“Wait where?” said Elfwyn. “Why should we spend another night on the path when my grandmother’s house is right nearby?”
She lifted her hands to her mouth and called, “GRANNND-MAA!”
They heard the thump of a butter churn moving along the path.
“Well, here they are.” Dame Glammer’s eyes glowed orange in the twilight, and her grin reached into her voice. “Just like Dame Esper told me. Three little chickabiddies, coming to see an old witch in her cabin.”
“Hello, Grandma,” said Elfwyn.
The half of Dame Glammer that wasn’t in the butter churn leaned over to examine Elfwyn. She took Elfwyn’s chin in her wrinkled hand and peered into her eyes.
“So, who is this who calls me Grandma?”
“Elfwyn. Berga’s daughter.”
“Ah. Berga’s daughter.” Dame Glammer grinned as if she might eat Elfwyn. “I haven’t seen you since you were two years old.”
“I knew it!
” said Elfwyn. “She told me I’d never met you, but I remembered.”
Dame Glammer’s expression was unfathomable. “Remembered? What do you remember?”
“I remember you coming along in the butter churn,” said Elfwyn. “And we picked strawberries.”
“Ah,” said Dame Glammer. “And your mother lied to you, did she?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say—”
“I would. Told you you’d never met me when you had, eh? I call that lying. Come along, chickabiddies.”
Dame Glammer thumped off down the path. Elfwyn, Reven, and Jinx followed. A few minutes later they heard cursing ahead of them. They hurried along the path to Dame Glammer’s cottage.
The witch was writhing on the ground, trying to get free of the overturned butter churn. Reven rushed forward to help her. In the end it needed all three of them to pull her free.
“Thank you, chickabiddies. I’ll have to see about getting a new butter churn made. That one’s getting a bit snug. Come inside. You’re just in time for dinner.”
This seemed to alarm Reven considerably. And even when they got inside and it became clear that they weren’t on the menu, as Dame Glammer began setting out bowls of soup and bread and honey, he kept glancing nervously at the stone oven set into the chimney.
“Oh, you’re a little big for that oven, chickabiddy,” Dame Glammer told him, grinning. “I’d never fit you in there, nor you me.”
She cackled, and Jinx, who had outgrown being afraid of her ages ago, was suddenly afraid of her again.
“And what brings you here in the company of Simon’s little chipmunk and this other nervous boy, granddaughter?” Dame Glammer asked as they sat down to eat.
Elfwyn told her grandmother how she had been attacked by a werebear and some wolves and had met Jinx and Reven.
“And why did your mother let you leave your clearing in the first place?”
Elfwyn told how barbarians had taken over Butterwood Clearing, and the directions her mother had given her for going to her grandmother’s house. She answered each question very precisely.
“And your mother is getting married again? What happened to the last one?”
“Yes. Werewolves,” said Elfwyn with a wince. Jinx wondered if “the last one” had been Elfwyn’s father or her stepfather.
“Well, I don’t mean to speak badly of your mother, chickabiddy, but she always was a fool. There’s no need to keep marrying people. I’m glad to see you’re more sensible than her. Even if you do have a curse on you.”
Jinx remembered the witch on the path mentioning Elfwyn’s curse. He wondered what it was. Elfwyn looked embarrassed and concentrated on eating her soup. Dame Glammer turned her attention to Jinx.
“So. Still trust Simon the Wizard, do you, little chipmunk?”
“I’d rather you didn’t call me chipmunk.”
“Would you, chipmunk? It just goes to show we don’t always get what we want in this world.”
Jinx felt as embarrassed as Elfwyn looked, and he was not going to look at Reven, who he was sure was laughing at him. Jinx was just realizing that every time he’d seen Dame Glammer before, Simon had been there.
“And you’re not trying to read my mind anymore.” There was a tinge of pity in Dame Glammer’s voice.
And it made Jinx angry. She had no business feeling sorry for him. Not when the whole thing was her fault.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have given him the roots,” she went on.
“You didn’t give them to him, you sold them to him,” said Jinx. He heard a “tut” from Elfwyn and realized he was being not-nice again. He shut his mouth. He didn’t want to anger Dame Glammer. He’d never noticed that far-back gleam in her eyes before. She looked dangerous.
“And you.” She turned her attention to Reven. “Who are you and where do you come from?”
“I’m Reven, fair—er, Dame. And I come from King Rufus’s court.”
“King Rufus.” She frowned. “A little backwater kingdom to the west? King who likes to put witches into barrels stuck about with nails and roll them down a hill until they’re dead?”
Reven went pale, and Jinx also felt a bit sick and put his spoon down in his soup.
“Not just witches,” said Reven, looking at the table. “He did it to my stepmother, too.”
“Oh yes, witches and wicked stepmothers,” said Dame Glammer, nodding.
“My stepmother was not wicked!”
The change in Reven was startling. He wasn’t ingratiating, or charming, or fascinated, or slightly nervous—he was furious. His eyebrows drew down like angry swords, and you could believe that his eyes could cut you down where you stood. Jinx inched his chair away from him.
Dame Glammer was not alarmed. “Why did he do it?”
Reven opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
“I see. And your father—what’s your father’s name?”
Again Reven opened his mouth and no sound came out.
“And Reven—is that your real name?”
The same thing again. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. Jinx and Elfwyn looked from Dame Glammer to Reven and back again.
“That’s a terrible spell, dear,” said Dame Glammer, shaking her head. “I expect a wizard could take it off you, but I can’t do a thing with it myself.”
Reven’s anger had vanished. He flushed bright red and looked as if he would have liked to jump up and run out of the cabin, if only he hadn’t been too well brought up.
Dame Glammer turned back to Elfwyn. “Well, chickabiddy, what do you think of your old grandma?”
“I think you like to make people uncomfortable and remind them of hurtful things, and it’s not very nice,” said Elfwyn.
Dame Glammer cackled. “What a delightfully honest child you are.”
“Why can’t you take Reven’s curse off him?” said Jinx. “Simon says curses are easier for witches than for wizards.”
“Does he? And do you still trust what Simon says, dear?”
“Could the evil wizard Simon take my curse off me, good Dame?” said Reven.
“He’s not evil,” said Jinx.
“Oh, isn’t he?” Dame Glammer sipped soup, smacked her lips, and then said to Reven, “I think he could not. Simon is not a very powerful wizard.”
Her eyes glittered at Jinx as she said this, to see how he would take it. Jinx didn’t believe her.
“And it would take a very powerful wizard. The Bonemaster, perhaps,” said Dame Glammer.
Reven looked interested.
“The Bonemaster is evil!” said Jinx.
“Simon says?” said Dame Glammer sweetly.
“I’ve met the Bonemaster! He—he has knives in his thoughts,” said Jinx.
“Be that as it may,” said the witch, “he’s the one who can take that nasty curse off our boy here. If anybody can.”
Jinx looked to Elfwyn for help. But Elfwyn was staring down at her soup.
“The Bonemaster would kill him!” said Jinx.
“Oh, I think not,” said Dame Glammer. “He wouldn’t harm our boy. No, I really think not.” She grinned. “Any more than Simon would harm you.”
Jinx hadn’t wanted to discuss this in front of the others, but—“I want to know how to undo that.”
“Undo what, chipmunk?”
“The spell. The—” He thought about what Sophie had said. “The deathforce magic Simon did on me.”
“Oh, deathforce magic is the Bonemaster’s specialty, chipmunk. Not our dear wizard Simon’s.”
“Then what did he do to me?” Jinx demanded. “You said I could do deep Urwald magic! And now I can’t, because of that spell with those rotten evil roots.”
“Oh, yes. Deep Urwald magic.” Dame Glammer’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Born of fear, that kind of magic is. You need fear to stay alive in the Urwald. And so you learned to watch everything, didn’t you? Even the insides of people’s heads. So you knew how to tiptoe around things, and when to hide, and when to run.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Elfwyn, looking up from her soup.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” said Jinx.
“Aren’t you, chipmunk?” She pointed her spoon at him. “Only a fool isn’t afraid in the Urwald. And you’re twelve years old and still alive.” She tapped the spoon on his nose. “I expect you’re no fool.”
“But I can still do—other stuff,” said Jinx, wiping soup off his nose with his sleeve.
“What other stuff is that, chipmunk?”
“Like hearing the trees and stuff,” said Jinx. “Isn’t that deep Urwald magic? Why didn’t I lose that?”
“That’s the half of you that’s underground, isn’t it, chipmunk? I expect if someone did a spell on the human bits, your roots wouldn’t notice.”
“Humans don’t have roots,” said Elfwyn.
“Everyone has roots,” said Dame Glammer.
“I’m not a tree,” said Jinx. He was quite sure he was completely human. He did not, for example, have leaves.
“There’s more of you underground than you think, chipmunk.”
“How come I can still do magic magic? Like, spells?”
“Can you?” Dame Glammer grinned. “Show me.”
Jinx tried to levitate the spoon out of his soup. It was nowhere near as easy as the ladle in Gooseberry Clearing. The spoon gave a feeble wriggle but didn’t rise.
“Hope you’re not relying on that magic to keep you alive in the Urwald, chipmunk.” Dame Glammer grinned. “If it’s deathforce magic Simon did on you, then I reckon you have to ask the expert.”
“You said it wasn’t deathforce magic,” said Elfwyn.
“No, she didn’t,” said Jinx, who was used to this sort of magicianly double-talk. “You mean I have to ask the Bonemaster, don’t you?”
“You should stay away from the Bonemaster,” said Dame Glammer. “Didn’t Simon tell you that?”
“Yes,” said Jinx. “He did.”
“I expect the Bonemaster could tell you a few things about Simon.”
Late that night, after Jinx and Reven had gone to bed in the loft, Jinx woke to hear Elfwyn and Dame Glammer talking at the kitchen table.
“How did you get that nasty spell put on you, chickabiddy?” Dame Glammer murmured. “Was it a christening type of situation? Bad fairy?”
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