by J. A. White
Why didn’t they understand? Lucas, with his soft eyes; Taff, bringing tea to her room, trying to make it the way she did; her father, suddenly taking care of the farmwork in her stead. Kara didn’t want their help. She didn’t want to talk. She wanted her book back. She missed it, the power. She couldn’t go back to being Kara Westfall. The others had been right to mock her. That girl was nothing.
It was only on the fifth morning that Kara felt slightly better. She still had a throbbing headache, but she thought she might be able to eat breakfast and keep it down this time. Taff knocked hesitantly at her door, and Kara gave him a big hug. He smiled and hugged her back, but she could tell from the way he scrunched up his face that she needed a bath. Kara laughed for the first time in close to a week.
After she had thoroughly scrubbed every inch of her body, she went outside to feel the sun on her shoulders. It wasn’t quite warm enough to swim in the creek, but Kara thought she might at least dangle her feet in the water while Taff sat on his favorite rock and sketched a new design. Maybe Father could come too.
Excited by the prospect, Kara nearly passed Constance Lamb, sitting on their porch swing with hands folded primly in her lap.
“If you’re finally done prettifying yourself,” she said, “I thought it might be the appropriate time for us to have a little talk.”
They did not speak again until they were deep in the orchard. The last of the hushfruits had fallen to the ground, leaving the air sickly sweet with the smell of rotten fruit.
“You stole my book,” Kara said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Constance sighed. “I overheard one of our farmhands talking to my husband about some shenanigan him and his foolish friends were trying to pull over here, and how it went completely wrong. From the way he described it, I knew you must have the grimoire and that it was only a matter of time before the graycloaks found it. So I came to your farmhouse earlier in the day and took it before they could. Foolish girl—I didn’t think you’d actually hide it in such an obvious spot.”
“If you hadn’t interfered, the graycloaks would have never found—”
“Wrong. They found the seeds I left and assumed it was just a hiding spot for a farmer’s pathetic savings. You’re not nearly as clever as you think you are. That might be something to reflect upon.”
“Give me my book.”
“A few questions first. Where did you find it?” Constance leaned against a tree and crossed her arms, waiting expectantly while Kara decided whether to tell her the truth.
If Kara admitted that she had entered the Thickety, Constance might report her to Fen’de Stone. But if Constance was her enemy, why hadn’t she just told the fen’de about the spellbook in the first place? She could have handed it to him five days ago and been considered a great hero.
Kara took a deep breath. At some point she was going to have to trust somebody, and now seemed as good a time as ever. “I found it in the Thickety,” she said.
Constance nodded. “Good. I wanted to make sure you were willing to tell me the truth.”
“You knew?”
“Of course, Kara. I’m the one who buried it there.”
Impossible, Kara thought. This must be some sort of trick. Constance Lamb was one of the most devout members of the Fold. She never missed Service, sewed the greatest number of words during Quilting, and read the Path to the elderly and infirm in her spare time. She had never been punished for any sort of infraction, even chastened for something minor. The thought of her daring to step foot in the Thickety . . . it just wasn’t possible.
Unless . . .
“You’re a witch!” Kara exclaimed.
Constance looked honestly shocked at the suggestion.
“Absolutely not! No—that grimoire is just another book to me. All I see are blank pages, as it appears to anyone without the talent.” She looked straight at Kara, her eyes filled with sudden sympathy. “We’re the lucky ones.”
You might change your mind if you knew how good it felt, Kara thought, but then she remembered how she had suffered without the book and wondered if Constance might be right after all.
“Your mother was a wonderful woman, Kara. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Oh, she had her faults, all right. She could be vain, as beautiful women are prone to be. And stubborn as a bull. Once that woman had it in her mind that she was right, there was no persuading her otherwise. But mostly she was kind and smart and funny. And a good friend.” Constance wiped her eyes.
I’m not the only one who misses her, thought Kara. She felt selfish that she had assumed otherwise, as though she were hoarding her mother’s memory for herself.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Kara asked. “Why were you always so . . .”
“Cruel? Dismissive?” She sighed. “It’s complicated. I can’t look at you without remembering her. She was my best friend. It broke my heart when she died . . . and I was angry with her, besides.”
“Angry that she died?”
“Partially. But mostly that she didn’t listen to me.”
Constance turned away from her.
“She showed me what the grimoire could do. Simple spells, so I wouldn’t be frightened away. Turning a withered plant into a beautiful flower. Mending a wagon wheel. At first I was scared. This was against the natural way of things. This was witchcraft! There could be no greater sin! But everything that she did was so harmless—so helpful, even—that eventually it just became a part of our everyday routine.” She shrugged. “I was the smart one. Abigail could bake. Helena could do magic.”
“Aunt Abby knew?”
“Yes, Kara. She knew.”
There was a sound from somewhere else in the orchard, the rustle of an animal passing their way. If I had the grimoire, I could capture it.
“So you knew my mother was a witch but didn’t report her,” Kara said.
“Yes.”
“Then what happened?”
“Helena changed. It was small things at first. She started using her craft even when there was no reason for it. I came into the kitchen one day, and your mother stood at the counter, completely absorbed in making a pitcher of water pour itself into an empty glass. Without touching it, of course.” Constance mimed the action with her hands. “And then the glass of water, back into the pitcher. And then back again. Must have done it twenty times before she noticed me standing there. She just closed her grimoire and walked away. And that was the other thing. The grimoire. It used to be that she would leave it under the floorboards unless she needed it, but she took to carrying it with her everywhere. Even if she couldn’t bring the whole book, she would tear off a scrap of paper and tuck it in her pocket. ‘Just in case,’ she said one time. I don’t even know what she meant by that. Maybe she didn’t either. Eventually she became paranoid that Abby or I were going to try to steal her precious book, so she stopped inviting us over. You were probably too young to remember, but—”
“No,” Kara said. “I mean, I don’t remember exactly what happened. Just that you and Aunt Abby were there every day, and then you suddenly stopped coming. But I don’t remember Mother acting strange at all.”
“Like I said, you were young. You might not have noticed.”
Kara remained silent. After all these years of waiting, the last thing she wanted to do was interrupt.
“Helena became obsessed with that damned book. It was all she could think about. I knew—or thought I knew—that if we destroyed it, everything would go back to normal, so I slipped tighteye into Helena’s tea. While she slept poor Abby took the book back to her house to burn it. I stayed behind. Just knelt by Helena’s bedside and hoped that when my friend woke up, she would be my friend again. But the moment Helena opened her eyes, she clasped her hands around my neck and squeezed, and when I begged her to stop she just laughed—she laughed, Kara—and squeezed harder. Then she threw me across the room like I was an empty sack, face-first into a mirror.” Constance ran a hand along her sca
rs, each one a memory of that night. “When I looked up, there was blood in my eyes, but I could see your mother jerk her head into the air like a hound picking up a scent.” Constance turned away and ran a slightly trembling hand along a gnarled branch. “It was like the book had called out to her or something. Like it had screamed for help. I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but . . . she killed them, Kara. Abby and her new husband. She killed them both.”
Constance Lamb slumped to the ground, placed her face into her hands, and cried. When her shaking had subsided to a quiver, Kara asked her next question, the words barely louder than a whisper. It hardly seemed important anymore (they were right Mother was evil they were all right), but she still wanted to know how the story ended.
“If Mother had already killed two people, why didn’t she fight back when the graycloaks came?”
“She had only one spell left. And all witches know never, under any circumstances, to use the final page in their grimoires. Helena feared the consequence of that far more than any heartless torture the fen’de might devise.”
“Why?” Kara asked. “What happens?”
Constance propped her hands against her hips and looked at Kara in a way that made her feel five again.
“Did you really think all that power would come without a price?” she asked. “Haven’t you ever wondered why the most infamous witches often vanished at the height of their powers? Minoth the Toothless? Mary Kettle? Elizabeth of the Soil? One day they’re unleashing hellfire upon unsuspecting travelers or birthing a plague in the village well, and the next day . . .” Constance snapped her fingers. “Gone forever.”
“Timoth Clen slayed them,” Kara said. “Everyone knows that. It says so right in the Path.”
Constance carefully scanned the farmland to make sure they were truly alone.
“In some cases, yes, I’m sure that’s true,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “But there’s a lot more to it than that. I don’t claim to know what dark entity gives the grimoire its powers. I’m not even sure your mother knew. But any witch who casts the Last Spell in a grimoire finalizes an eternal compact. From that point on, she belongs to it forever. And by forever, I do not mean until the day she dies. I mean forever.”
Kara’s stomach twisted into a cold knot. She had been certain that nothing could terrify her more than being alone with Sordyr in the tree tunnel, but now she wasn’t so sure.
“How do you know all this?” Kara asked.
“Helena told me, a few days before she died. She was able to make her grimoire tell her things. Sometimes things that hadn’t happened yet. It was one of her gifts.”
“Well,” Kara managed, trying to keep her voice steady, “those witches were clearly fools. Why cast the Last Spell at all?”
Constance fixed her with a knowing look. “I think you can work out the answer to that one on your own.”
Because they couldn’t stop themselves. Because their souls belonged to the grimoire.
“But what does it matter?” Constance stepped forward and studied Kara’s eyes. “You’re never using the grimoire again, so there’s no risk. Correct?”
Kara nodded weakly. Apparently satisfied, the older woman continued, her voice hoarse and tired.
“After Helena was gone, I found the grimoire and tossed it in a fire, but the flames did nothing. I thought about giving it to Fen’de Stone, thinking he might know some kind of ritual to destroy it, but then I remembered the . . . relish . . . he took in your mother’s death, and so I hid the book in the Thickety instead. When you passed the nightseeker’s test—just like I prayed you would—I thought that would be the end of it. You weren’t like her. But somehow you found the book anyway. It was the Forest Demon that led you to it, wasn’t it?”
“No. He tried to stop me. I just barely escaped with my—”
Constance shook her head.
“You’re wrong,” she said. “If Sordyr truly wanted to stop you, you would not be standing here right now. He let you escape. Just like he let me bury the book in his forest. I don’t know what he’s planning, but clearly he wanted you to find the book and use it. You’ve been doing exactly what he wants, which should frighten you more than anything else.” Constance took Kara by the shoulders. “Your mother spoke about him, Kara. He sent her nightmares as a kind of . . . she described it as a kind of present. To woo her, the way a young man might come to your door with a bouquet of wildflowers.” The grip on Kara’s shoulders tightened. “The only time I ever saw your mother frightened was when she spoke of Sordyr.”
Kara got to her feet. She picked a hushfruit pit dangling low from a tree and rolled it between her hands.
“Why didn’t Mother tell me all this herself?”
“Because you were just a little girl, Kara. And because she wanted to protect you. The greatest service you can do her memory is to destroy the grimoire and forget about it forever.”
“I thought you said the grimoire couldn’t be destroyed.”
“Not by me—no. But since you are now its rightful master, I think you might be able to. That’s just a guess though. I’ll admit the rules of this craft confuse me.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me this in the first place, instead of stealing the book and waiting so long to explain?”
“How were the past few days, Kara? Pleasant?”
The pain, the weakness. There had been a reason.
“You wanted me to understand the power it had over me,” Kara said, “so I would know what could happen if I continued to use it.”
“Not could happen, Kara. Will happen. You’ll end up just like her.” She took Kara’s hands in her own. “And neither one of us wants that. Not me. And certainly not your mother.”
And suddenly Kara fell forward, and the woman who had steadfastly ignored her the last seven years of her life held her close and whispered soft words of comfort. Kara felt the tension drain from her body and realized how nice it was to stop thinking, just for a few moments, about whether things actually would be okay and just hold someone and believe.
“I miss her,” Kara said. “I miss her so much.”
“Me too,” said Constance Lamb.
When Kara had finished brushing the tears from her eyes, Constance asked if she was strong enough to take the grimoire back and destroy it. Kara nodded. They walked to the place where Constance had hidden the book, a hollowed-out tree trunk just off the trail that led back to the village.
“You should burn it here,” Constance said. “Just gather some firewood and get it done.”
Kara could hear the doubt in her voice, the slight hesitation that meant Let’s do it before you change your mind. And let me be here, so I can make sure you go through with it.
“I don’t think it works that way,” Kara said. “I think I need to be by myself. I think I need to want the book . . .” Dead was what she almost said, but that implied the book was alive—a possibility she was not yet ready to consider.
“. . . gone,” she said instead.
“Are you sure you’ll be able to go through with this alone?”
Kara nodded. The grimoire was responsible for all the evil that had befallen her family. Destroying it would be easy.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Kara said. “After what you’ve told me, I will never cast another spell.”
It was only when she held the grimoire again that Kara realized she had lied.
She needed to cast a spell. Any spell. Anywhere. It had taken every ounce of self-control for Kara not to open the spellbook right in front of Constance and start conjuring creatures at random. Somehow she managed to nod and wave good-bye and not look as though she couldn’t wait for this annoying woman to go away so she could use her book. But Kara knew it was important to remain calm. To look calm. If she didn’t Constance might try to take the grimoire back, and then (you would have to kill her) Kara thought something bad might happen.
She ran into the copse of red willows that bordered the western edg
e of their land. Kara knew she should get farther from the main path that ran toward the village, but she couldn’t wait a moment longer. She threw the book to the ground, and it opened to the last creature she had captured in its pages.
Fire ants.
Kara spoke the words that lined the small figure sketched into the book. Without looking up she turned to a new page. Burrclaws. She conjured them too. Instead of providing her body with an instant sense of relief, as Kara had anticipated, casting these spells barely diminished the pain. She needed more. Treeflies. Neirs. The words flew from Kara’s lips until her tongue, unused to such foreign sibilance, became swollen and sore. Why wasn’t it getting better? Wasn’t she giving the book what it wanted? She cast more spells, not even cognizant of what she was summoning. It was so much easier this way, just to let it happen. Her hands trembled as she flipped through a series of inscribed pages, needing to conjure more, more, more . . .
The old pain faded. A new pain began.
Her right arm suddenly went numb as a flock of tiny neirs—their smiling faces belying a vicious nature—dug into a burrclaw and tore it to pieces. Meanwhile an army of fire ants overwhelmed a poor brightcay, slicing through its diaphanous wings before it could make its escape. Kara felt flames engulf her fingertips as the fire ants set to work.
“Enough!” Kara exclaimed.
The animals vanished. Some skittered away or flew off into the forest; some just blinked into nothingness. Kara collapsed to the ground, too spent to care about the difference. She did not feel the pain anymore, the need. She did not feel anything.
Kara closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the sun had moved halfway across the sky, and Grace was standing above her.
Kara got to her feet, quicker than she should have, and the ground tilted upward to meet her hands. She tasted bile on the back of her tongue and was forced to remain still until the dizziness passed.