Mortal Fire

by Elizabeth Knox

  “We’ll face that problem if we have to.”

  At that moment Canny stumbled out of the forest, her clothes coated in mud, her feet bleeding, and her hair as wet as waterweed.

  They rushed to her. Sholto hugged her, while Susan shook open the blanket she’d held all this time, its dryness preserved by her oilskin and umbrella. She wrapped the blanket around Canny, then Sholto picked his sister up and strode off downriver.

  Susan pattered through the puddles after him. “Are we going straight to the car?”

  “No,” Canny said, in a quiet, definite voice.

  “There are our bags to think of, Sholto,” Susan said. She tried to catch up and come alongside so she could check on Canny. The girl was pale and scratched, but her mouth was set, and she was looking at her brother with knitted brows. “I am not going to run off without getting dry and warm,” she said.

  Susan couldn’t understand how Canny could keep doing this—putting terrifying and strange stuff behind her and forming a new plan. She could see that that’s what the girl was doing—see the calculating mind at work under all the physical and emotional distress. But that was Canny—Sisema Afa’s daughter, whether she owned it or not. Her whales had gone, so she was going to steer by the stars.

  “I’d be better off for a bath and bed,” Canny insisted. It sounded sensible, though Susan knew it wasn’t. The problem was that what Susan and Sholto now knew they still didn’t understand. And they couldn’t seem to hold it in their heads like ordinary information, the sort that leads to practical decisions.

  “We’re not setting foot in the guesthouse again,” Sholto said. He was obviously doing better than Susan with the strange circumstances.

  They squelched on. In Sholto’s arms, Canny began to shiver, then to quake. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably.

  Susan grabbed the back of Sholto’s coat. “Stop! We can’t go on like this. I’m freezing. She’s freezing. Before I came out with the gear, I slapped eighty bucks down on Iris Zarene’s pretentious guest book. We are fully paid up, with one more night up our sleeves. Let’s use it.”

  Sholto stopped. He swung around and glowered at Susan through his dripping hair. “Haven’t you got the sense to be scared of them? God knows what they’re capable of.”

  “I’m more afraid of the weather, Sholto. The rain and the river.”

  Canny joined in, her voice tremulous. “I feel sick, Sholto. I can’t seem to get warm.”

  “Don’t you remember what they did?” Sholto asked Susan.

  “I don’t know what I remember. They sent the boys to chase Canny, and the bees got stirred up. That’s what I remember. They said weird and threatening things.” Susan stuck out her lower lip and glowered.

  “So cold,” Canny moaned.

  Sholto looked from one female to the other, then heaved Canny to change his grip and turned away from the flooding river and toward the guesthouse.

  * * *

  CANNY WAS SITTING IN THE BATH while Susan knelt on the bath mat, gradually adding hot water and pushing it down the tub with her hand. She froze when she heard Sholto intercept Iris Zarene at the bathroom door.

  “No,” Sholto said, then stiffly, “My sister requires some privacy.”

  Iris said, “I packed your bags and put them on the porch, Mr. Mochrie. Your money is in one of them. I don’t want your money.”

  “You can bring those bags back indoors, thank you very much,” Sholto said.

  “This is my house, Mr. Mochrie. I decide who gets to stay under its roof.”

  “I’m sure there’s some law against chucking people out in bad weather. Something about reckless endangerment.”

  “Oh, you’re so clever.” Iris oozed contempt.

  Canny hugged her knees, apparently mesmerized by the water flowing from the tap. Susan turned it off, the better to hear.

  Sholto was saying, “I’m sure the sheriff will be very interested in some of what has been going on here.”

  Iris gave a bark of laughter. “Report us. Please do.” Then her voice changed pitch to pierce the closed door. “You lying little monster,” she said. “This won’t do you any good. That magic you’ve so cleverly cultivated is going to stay where it belongs. And when it leaves you, it’s going to turn you inside out.”

  “Get out of here!” Sholto yelled.

  There was the sound of two sets of footsteps going along the hall, and on the stairs. Sholto was stamping and shouting, chasing Iris off.

  Susan began to soap Canny’s hair. Canny sneezed. “I’m almost deaf. My ears are stuffed,” she said.

  “Did you catch any of that?”

  Canny said, “It doesn’t matter what Iris says. The air she is using to talk is my air.”

  “Fine,” Susan said. She dug her fingers into Canny’s scalp. “At least your grandiosity isn’t as nasty as hers.”

  Susan washed, then rinsed Canny’s hair with a fat sea sponge. Canny let off an impressive volley of sneezes and her nose began to bleed. She pinched it closed. Blood dripped off her wrist into the soapy water.

  “Stay still while that clots.” Susan got up and began to gather Canny’s muddied clothes.

  “Leave those,” Canny said, nasal. “Could you find me my pajamas?”

  Susan dropped the clothes back on the floor. Something in the wet mass went “clink.” Canny met Susan’s look, challenging.

  “Are you stealing stuff now?” Susan asked.

  “No.”

  “Okay then.” Susan went off in search of pajamas.

  Canny’s bag had been spitefully put out under the dripping eaves. Sholto had retrieved it, emptied it, and was hanging various damp garments over the top of the wardrobe door and the foot of Canny’s bed. Susan saw that the bed had been stripped. She went in search of bedding, found another guest room empty, and removed all the quilts and blankets. Canny would have to do without sheets.

  Susan reassembled Canny’s bed with one under-blanket and several quilts. Sholto showed Susan the room keys. “I have these. And I raided the drawer of Iris’s desk and found her spares too.”

  Susan laughed.

  Sholto laid a fire in the grate of Canny’s room. There was a coal box in every room, all of them full. He said they should be able to keep at least this room warm and dry.

  Susan was still in her wet clothes and felt clammy but not chilled. “It’s cold for summer, but mostly it’s just wet.”

  “Canny’s sick, so she’s feeling it,” Sholto said.

  “She’s not as bad as you think.”

  “I thought you were the one who was worried that she was at death’s door.”

  Canny appeared then, wrapped in a towel, her hair still sopping.

  “Dry yourself,” Sholto scolded. Then he muttered, “I don’t know what we’re still doing here.”

  There was a quick flash of movement in the hallway. One of the big girls hurrying past. Susan darted out and grabbed her. It was Bonnie. Susan said, “Can you find Canny some dry pajamas?”

  Bonnie looked at Canny with a kind of thrilled terror, then gave Susan a little nod.

  Susan let her go. She could hear one of the adult men downstairs—she thought it was Lealand, his voice was deep and heavier than Cyrus’s. “The forces are gathering,” she said to Sholto.

  “They can gather as much as they like. We are not shifting till we’re ready,” Sholto said. Then, to his sister, “Take that wet towel off and get into bed.”

  Canny waited till he’d turned back to the hearth and then obeyed him. She dragged the quilt up to her chin and lay shivering.

  Sholto put an arm around Susan. “Can you get her cocoa or something? Are you brave enough to go down and do that? I think you’re less likely to end up in a confrontation.”

  Susan nodded.

  “Then you can get some sleep. I’m going to guard the door.”

  Susan went downstairs. She stood for a moment in the hall, steeling herself, then boldly strode into Iris Zarene’s kitchen. “Blessings be upon this h
ouse!” she said, loud and droll. That earned her a startled look from Lealand Zarene. She immediately began searching the cupboards.

  “What are you doing?” Iris said.

  “Making Canny a hot drink. She is tired and sick and sore.” Susan found cocoa and a cup. She went to the safe for milk. Its enamel pitcher was cooling in a bucket. She lifted it out and carried it dripping across the floor to the bench.

  “That’s not the way we do that,” Iris said.

  “I’m sorry. My house has a refrigerator,” Susan said. She wouldn’t look at them. She found a pan and poured milk into it and set it to heat on the always-hot coal range. She carried the pitcher back to the safe, then stood at the stove, stirring the milk so that it wouldn’t form a skin. Her own skin was crawling.

  “This one studies folklore,” Iris said informatively to her cousin. “She has been asking the kids all sorts of awkward questions about local legends concerning witches.”

  Lealand laughed dryly.

  “The other one is a history student. I had a snoop at his papers to see what he was saying about us. He writes things like ‘Humans are animals made of memories.’ Fine sounding, soap-bubble thoughts.”

  Susan felt breathless. The milk was steaming. She poured it on the cocoa powder and stirred.

  “You’ll forget, you know,” Iris said in a cool, conversational voice. “All those bubbles will pop and you’ll be left with empty air.”

  Susan picked up the hot cup and carried it out of the kitchen.

  * * *

  WHEN SHOLTO WENT OUT AND SHUT HER bedroom door, Canny bit down on the rustling quilt and cried, stifled, silent and hopeless. She didn’t stop till there was a knock. It was Susan with cocoa. “Where is that girl with those pajamas?” Susan said, impatient. Then Bonnie appeared behind Sholto’s barricading chair.

  Canny turned her wet eyes on Bonnie. “Thank you,” she said, then, “Do you have a moment to speak to me?”

  Bonnie glanced at Sholto, who moved his chair to let her by. She hovered, uncertain.

  “Please,” Canny said, with deep and desperate intensity.

  Bonnie came nervously in and laid a nightdress on the end of the bed. It was Victorian, floor-length, embroidered cotton.

  “That’s an antique,” Susan said.

  “Sorry,” Bonnie whispered.

  “No, I don’t mean old, I mean that it’s exquisite, and it seems a shame to use it.”

  “It’s all I could find,” Bonnie said.

  Canny sat up and raised her arms like a helpless infant, and Susan slipped the garment over her head, pulled it down, and buttoned its cuffs, pushing the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons into their loops. Canny said, “Thank you, Susan. You go get some sleep.”

  Susan looked quizzically from one girl to the other. Canny patted the bed, inviting Bonnie to sit beside her. Bonnie sat. Susan threw up her hands in exasperation and went out. Sholto closed the door.

  “You’re in such trouble,” Bonnie said.

  Canny leaned back on her pillow and sipped her drink. She thought how she’d averaged one meal a day for days—and maybe two hours’ sleep. Each sleep had been recuperation from a terrible illness, and every meal a communion.

  “Bonnie, I need your help. There are a few odd, but not terribly complicated things I need brought to me. I’m not going to be allowed out, so someone else has to do it for me. I’m sure you can manage.”

  Bonnie shook her head.

  “And you can manage to say you’ll help me.”

  “What do you want these things for?”

  “I’m not going to tell you that. But I will tell you something I know, to prove I’m not a dabbler, and I’ll make you a promise, a very, very solemn one.”

  Bonnie’s eyes grew wide.

  “Okay. What I want is some chicken wire, some pliers, quite a lot of newspaper, a jug of water and a glass, a packet of corn flour, and some tissue paper. Do you need to write this down?”

  Bonnie gave an impatient flip of her right hand that made her forearm slip free of her sleeve. Canny looked at the tattoo. “Oh, that latest one means you’ve mastered the Tabular Alphabet.”

  Bonnie blinked. “Yes.” Then, “On your first day here you told me you could see the house on Terminal Hill. I could have told Aunt Iris and Uncle Cyrus and Lealand. I should have, but I didn’t.”

  “I know, and I’m grateful, but you had a good reason for not telling. You’re like Lonnie. You don’t want to have to leave the valley and never come back.”

  “And lose what I’ve learned,” Bonnie said, her eyes filling. “Either I stay here and get sick, or I go and lose what I’ve learned. It isn’t much of a choice.”

  “You won’t have to do either. I’m going to try my very best to change things. That’s my promise.”

  Bonnie nodded. “Okay. I’ll help.” She jumped off the bed. “It’ll take me a while to get everything. I have to wait till the coast is clear. But I can just give some of it to your brother.”

  “I’d rather you delivered it to me yourself.”

  “The chicken wire is hardest,” Bonnie said. “I can hardly cut it from the chicken coops.”

  “There’s a cylinder of it protecting a sapling next to the guesthouse sign,” Canny said.

  “So there is.” Bonnie studied Canny carefully. “Do you remember everything?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “You must be a Zarene!”

  “There are people who remember everything who aren’t Zarenes,” said Canny. “But I think I may be a Zarene, though, believe me, I’m not as happy about it as you seem to be.”

  * * *

  WHEN BONNIE MADE HER FIRST DELIVERY—the water jug, glass, and corn flour—she found Canny sitting up in bed, crying bitterly and unself-consciously, and catching her tears in her cupped hands. Canny signaled with her chin at the water glass. Bonnie brought it over and Canny dribbled the small pool of salty water into it.

  “Is that magic?” Bonnie whispered. “What kind of magic is it?”

  “I’m just going to do whatever seems right,” Canny said. “And I hate this crying. It has to be of some use.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  Canny’s face crumpled. She tried to control herself. “The thing that mattered most, I got wrong,” she said. “And I had to give up what I wanted. Now my friend Marli is ill, and I should be at home.”

  Bonnie touched her arm. “It’ll be all right, you’ll see.”

  The last thing Bonnie delivered, after discarding her raincoat at the back door of the house, was a whole sack full of tissue paper, most of it pristine filmy squares. “These are the tissues we use to wrap the export apples,” she said. “I stole a whole packet. There are some discards in there too. They’re the scrunched ones.”

  Canny put her nose in the sack and took a whiff. The tissues had a faint apple scent. “Perfect,” she said. “You can go to bed now. And thank you. Thank you very much for your help, Bonnie.”

  “Your brother has nodded off. He didn’t wake up this time when I slipped past.”

  “Good. Try not to wake him.”

  Bonnie paused with her hand on the door handle. “I don’t think you’re a Zarene,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. You just seem like a stranger. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem like the strangest stranger I’ve ever met.”

  “And brown,” Canny said. “Very, very brown.”

  Bonnie looked worried, then remembered and laughed. “Good luck,” she said and went out.

  * * *

  CANNY CLIMBED OUT OF BED and spread her materials on the old rag rug. She looked at what she had, then closed her eyes to measure the object she had seen, the hovering, turning, coruscating shape. She picked up the pliers, pressed the twanging sheet of chicken wire flat, and began to cut. Now and then she stopped to push her hair behind her back—it was drying and gaining volume.

  Three hours later she had the base of her shape, a wire cage with wrigg
ly strands teased out of it to make several curling arms. These had only to be in the right attitude, curved so deep and no deeper; the actual shape she could refine as she built it up with layers of paper. Inside the cage she’d hung the compass, its fob chain anchored so that it could swing in the space, not rattle around loose.

  Canny turned to making her glue, a mix of corn flour, fresh water, and salt tears.

  * * *

  FIVE HOURS LATER she was smoothing on a final layer of apple tissue. Some of the tissue paper was faintly pink, stained by blood from the cuts she’d gotten while shaping the chicken wire.

  Canny set the finished shape by the hearth. She felt its weight shift as, inside it, the gold compass swung. She stayed by the fire, her eyes periodically drooping then flying open again.

  The model of her Master Rune slowly dried and whitened. Its tissue skin didn’t crack. She’d made it carefully, and absolutely faithfully, so that it was at once a fragile papier-mâché sculpture and an adamant, ageless thing that expressed every particle of her magic and possibility of her life.

  Iris Zarene had promised Canny that she’d lose her magic once she left the valley, that it would be torn out of her. Ghislain had said something similar, suggesting that the roots of her magic, when ripped free, wouldn’t come up clean, but with the stones and soil of her essential self clinging to them. Canny was afraid that she wouldn’t just forget the Zarene magic, but the valley itself, the river, orchards, hives, hidden house—and Ghislain. It seemed that nothing she could do would spare her from the pain of loss. But, though she wouldn’t be spared, perhaps she might be saved (so that she could save Marli). If only she could smuggle her Master Rune out of the valley.

  “Out of the valley,” Canny thought, “where I was only last night.”

  The marine sitting by Ghislain’s kitchen door, smoking a cigarette, had seen her. He’d mistaken her for her mother. Shading his pink-rimmed eyes, he’d said, “Morning, Sis. Where did you get that horrible outfit?”

  Even without her rune, Canny had somehow managed to be visible to him, and perhaps to Jonno too when, in the folk dance, he’d reached for her ghostly hand. The question was, with her rune, would her hands be less ghostly? Would they be solid enough to carry this papier-mâché sculpture for just five seconds, and a single step? Ghislain had insisted that a soul couldn’t carry anything. So why did she have the feeling that what was impossible for him and all his powerful Zarene ancestors was, for some reason, possible for her?