by J. A. White
Crossing swollen floorboards, Kara made her way deeper into the house. She was frightened, of course, but beneath that was a deep sadness. Aunt Abby, more than anyone in her life, had treated her like a child: squeezing her cheeks, making funny faces, sneaking her extra treats when Mother wasn’t looking.
She’d be doing those things for Taff right now, if Mother hadn’t killed her.
Kara turned a corner and entered the kitchen. Aunt Abby’s new husband had built it just for her, a newlywed surprise. It was twice the size of most kitchens, with an elaborate island at its center to hold all of Abby’s pots, pans, and mixing bowls. Now it was a darkened ruin. The island had cracked in two under the weight of a massive ceiling beam. Shards of pottery crunched beneath Kara’s feet.
A giant stood in the corner.
Kara spoke softly. “Where’s my brother?”
Simon did not respond.
“Taff!” Kara called. She took a step forward, intending to investigate the next room. Simon blocked her path.
“Let me pass,” Kara said.
Slowly Simon shook his head. He gestured to the satchel with one massive hand. The fingernails had been chewed raw.
“You need to see it? Before she’ll let me come?”
He nodded.
“Fine.”
Kara yanked the grimoire from the satchel and shoved it in his face. Simon opened his mouth in a silent scream, then backpedaled so fast, he nearly fell.
The book terrifies him. Maybe he’s not as simple as he seems.
She stepped around Simon into the meeting room. Like the rest of the house, it had fallen into disrepair, but at least the impressive table at its center—long enough to seat a dozen people—had escaped damage. Grace sat at its head, elbows resting on the table, head propped daintily on two folded hands. She had chosen a red ribbon for the occasion.
“This house soothes me,” she said. “Maybe I’ll move here. Afterward.”
A perfectly spaced row of candles lined the table, infusing the room with a soft glow. The tabletop had been scrubbed and polished.
“Where’s Taff?”
“Upstairs. I had to gag him. Sickly little pup won’t stop yapping, once he gets going. Give me the book, and I’ll set him free. I’ll even leave the gag on so you can enjoy a quiet journey home.”
“I need to see him.”
“Why? Do as I ask, and I’ll send him down.”
“I’ll give you the book as soon as I know Taff is safe.”
Grace slammed her fist against the table, rattling the candlesticks. Simon moaned softly, hiding his face in his hands.
“I need it! Now!”
Although Kara did not feel calm at all, she took a deep breath and slid into a chair two seats down from Grace.
“Let’s talk.”
“I don’t want to talk. I want the—”
“Grimoire. I understand. Of course I do. Have you really thought this through, though? Everyone already knows I’m a witch, and there’s little I can do to control my darker impulses. But you’re the fen’de’s daughter. What would your father think?”
“Do not speak of my father!” Her tone was venomous, but Grace’s lips trembled with hurt as she spoke; it was the most human Kara had ever seen her. “The rest of the village accepts me, but my own father looks at this hair, this twisted leg, and sees an abomination touched by magic. Once he learns of my power, he’ll be thrilled to know he was right the entire time.”
Grace rose to her feet, candlelight reflecting off her crystalline-blue eyes.
“I can’t wait to show him what his little girl can do,” she said.
“Grace . . .”
“I will have the grimoire. Now. Or I will tell Simon to go upstairs and crack your brother’s neck. He’ll do it too. He’ll do anything I want him to. Tell me that you believe me.”
“I believe you,” Kara said.
She’s lost. If there were any good in her whatsoever, it has been swallowed up by her need for the grimoire. I have no choice.
Kara slid the book across the table so it lay midway between them. Grace pounced on it like a wild beast on a carcass. Struck by a sudden, desperate idea, Kara tried to look as unconcerned as possible.
“It’s useless anyway,” she said, stifling a yawn.
“Don’t be daft. I’ve used it. I’ve felt its power.”
“Oh, it can do some good tricks, if that’s all you want. It’s great fun at the beginning.” Kara shrugged. “It just gets boring after a while. The curse doesn’t let you wield any real power.”
Grace ignored her and opened the book. Her look of triumph, however, quickly shattered as she flipped through the pages that held Kara’s spells. “Why are these all black?” she demanded, anger rising. “What did you do? These are useless! Useless!”
Then, midway through the book, Grace found a fresh page. Her breath quickened as she traced the words of a spell that remained invisible to Kara. “Yes! That’s just what I need.” She looked up, her confidence restored. “Now tell me about this curse, or I will make you tell me.”
“We had an agreement. I’ve done my part, and now—”
Grace spoke a single word, and Kara’s tongue swelled into a snakelike mass. Tiny tendrils branched off, squirming down her throat and into the oxygen-providing cavities of her nostrils. Kara fell to her knees, gagging for air that would not come.
Grace waved a hand. Kara’s tongue returned to normal.
“The curse,” Grace said. “Or next time I’ll kill you.”
Although her insides had turned to ice, Kara forced herself to laugh.
“That’s the point, Grace. You can’t. You can’t kill anyone.”
Grace stared at her quizzically.
“Explain.”
“I want to see my brother first.”
Kara hopped up on the meeting-room table and swung her legs casually, as though she had nothing to fear. She hoped that such insolence would help make her story more convincing. She also hoped that Grace did not notice her trembling hands.
“Fine,” Grace said. And then, louder: “Simon! Bring the whelp!”
Floorboards creaked as the giant entered the room, Taff slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain. He laid the boy across the table. Outside of a few scratches and bruises, Taff appeared unharmed.
Kara ran to his side and removed the gag.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Taff sneezed in response. By instinct Kara felt his forehead. The fever that burned within him was a raging, monstrous thing.
“What’s going on?” he asked. His voice was hoarse. “Why did they—”
Taff flew through the air, smacking against the opposite wall with a sickening thud. He slumped to the ground, motionless.
“The curse,” Grace said.
Kara charged her with a scream of rage, but Grace spoke a single syllable and Kara was propelled backward, the world spinning as her head collided with the stone floor. She struggled to rise but was held in place by invisible hands.
Leaning carefully on her cane, Grace stroked a wisp of hair out of Kara’s eyes.
“It’s sad, really. We could have done great things together.”
From the corner of her eye, Kara saw the grimoire sitting on the table.
“I know what you’re thinking. You can’t move, Kara. Besides, if you try anything, I’ll make the book create the most horrible spell I can think of. And then I’ll cast it on your brother.”
Grace flipped to a new page of the grimoire. Looked down. Smiled.
“Speak,” she said.
Suddenly Kara could move again. She talked quickly, trying not to think about how hard Taff had crashed into the wall. “My mother told me about the book when I was a little girl. She was the one who trained me.” Why hasn’t he made a sound? Even a moan of pain . . .
Grace scoffed. “She didn’t do a very good job. I’m already a better witch than you’ll ever be.”
“That’s what you don’t get,” Kara
said. “I can do all the spells you do. I just choose not to, because I might accidentally kill someone.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Remember that night outside my window? Letting my creatures kill you would have been easy. They wanted to—I could feel it. I had to exert all my power just to keep you alive.”
“Maybe the book wouldn’t let you kill me,” she said. “Maybe it wants a real master.”
“But what about everyone else in this town—did the book want them to live too? If I had the ability to take my revenge, don’t you think I would have done it long before now? If I could use the book the way I wanted to, we wouldn’t even be having a conversation right now! The moment you stole my brother, I would have ended you.”
This gave Grace pause. The cold logic of Kara’s story made sense.
“Tell me more,” she said.
Kara continued. “There’s nothing more to tell. The grimoire gives you all the power in the world, but you can’t use it to kill another person. If you do, you’ll never be able to cast a spell again. It’s nothing but a colossal tease.”
Grace slumped into her chair, shaking her head. “No. That doesn’t make any sense at all. Why give someone all this power if she can’t use it?”
It took Kara a moment before she realized that Grace was waiting for an answer. She thought frantically. With each passing second, Grace looked more suspicious.
“Mother died before she could tell me,” Kara said, but the lie sounded forced and weak.
Grace pulled the grimoire toward her. “Are you trying to trick me?”
“Just tell her, Kara,” Taff said, rising to his feet.
Both girls stared at the seven-year-old in surprise.
“The Path is wrong,” he said. “Not all witches are bad. A good witch cast a spell on the book so that it couldn’t be used for evil.”
Grace turned to Kara. “Is this true? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Taff continued. “She was afraid if you knew it was another spell, you might try to break it. She knows how smart you are. She doesn’t care about the others—neither of us do—but we want to be safe.”
Grace nodded slowly, satisfied by the explanation. Kara resisted the urge to plant kisses all over her brilliant brother’s face and took him by the hand, guiding him toward the door.
“We’re going now,” she said. Hopefully her story would keep Grace from doing any major harm, at least until she thought of a better plan. “Be careful. Even if you just hurt someone—it can cost you your powers for a few days. . . .”
“Stop,” Grace said.
They were so close. Kara thought about running, but Simon’s massive frame blocked the entire doorway.
“Perhaps your story is true,” she said, “but if so, that just makes you more dangerous to me. You’re the only ones who know my secret. If you tell someone, how will I defend myself?” She clicked her cane against the stone. “It’s strange. I was going to let you live. I really do like you, Kara. The boy, not so much.”
She turned to Simon, and her voice cracked only the tiniest bit when she spoke. “Start with him and make it quick. No need to be cruel about it.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Simon curled his arm around Taff’s neck and squeezed. The boy’s feet dangled off the floor.
“No!” Kara screamed. She dug her fingers beneath Simon’s arm and attempted to pull her brother free. “You don’t have to do this! You don’t have to listen to her!”
But then Kara looked into Simon’s eyes and understood the essential falsehood of her words: He did, in fact, have to do this. There was no joy in the act, but there was also no doubt that he would see this through to the end. His blank stare was workmanlike, like a farmer slaughtering a hog. Kara tore bloody trails across the giant’s arm, but his grip remained strong. It was only when she changed tactics and sent a well-placed kick to his manhood that Simon relinquished his hold. Taff fell to the floor, gasping for breath. Kara managed to get one hand around his shoulders before Simon regained his composure and pushed her away. It wasn’t a hard shove, by Simon’s standards, but it was enough to send Kara sprawling across the room. Her head connected with the meeting-room table. The right side of her face went instantly and completely numb, as though she had fallen asleep in the snow.
“Silly girl,” Grace said. “There are other ways to kill people than magic. Didn’t Mother teach you that?”
Kara rose to her knees, swallowing the sudden nausea burning her throat. The room teetered before her. She picked up a chair and raised it high in the air, struggling for a moment beneath its weight. Grace clapped her hands softly. “Go ahead,” she said. “Throw it. Maybe you’ll even give Simon a scratch.”
Except Kara didn’t throw it at Simon. She threw it at Grace.
It wasn’t a perfect hit; even on her best day, Kara had neither the strength nor skill for that. But luck, at least for this one moment, was with her, and twenty pounds of finely crafted De’Norian wood skidded across the floor and clipped Grace’s left leg. With no ability to balance herself, Grace fell to the ground headfirst, white hair spilling over her features like an angel’s shroud.
The grimoire crashed open-faced to the floor.
Kara wasted no time. As Simon let loose a wail of almost bestial fury and Grace raised her head, the leaking gash in her chin marring those perfect features, Kara stumbled to the book and fell before its leaves. Grace said something that might have been nonono, and then Kara placed her hand upon the grimoire. The black page before her shifted, and her old spell appeared.
And then she was lost in the book, allowing it to have her fully and completely (Why did I ever resist this?), but still she could hear them. Simon’s footsteps approaching like thunderclaps. Grace’s nails scratching against the stone as she struggled to her feet.
No time to think. No time to ponder right or wrong.
She read the words.
They waited. Frozen. Listening intently for what this new spell might bring.
Seconds passed. A minute.
Nothing but silence.
“It’s my book!” Grace finally spat out, her voice triumphant. “Mine! It doesn’t work for you anymore! You’ve failed, Witch Girl! You’ve—”
Grace had just enough time to realize she was wrong, and then the swarm swallowed her whole.
The girl’s pain was pleasure. Kara absorbed each tortuous gyration and flailing limb with ardent eyes, unwilling to miss a single moment. Grace had been transformed into a swirling mass of carapaces and mandibles; not even a single strand of her white hair could be seen. There were only Kara’s creatures—her beautiful, loyal creatures—cloaking the girl until Kara gave them her final command. Then, and only then, would they take her life.
A merciless smile shifted Kara’s features into strange new positions.
Something else was making a sound. Kara didn’t know where it was coming from—she refused to shift her eyes from the show—but it was loud and annoying and made Grace’s screams difficult to appreciate. Then Kara remembered. The giant. It was hard to tell, but she thought he might be sobbing.
Pathetic.
Kara stifled a laugh as the fool tried to rescue his mistress from the swarm. He was bitten several times for his troubles, and his hands began to swell even beyond their usual gargantuan size. She considered sending more reinforcements into the fray—the grimoire, nestled in her lap, craved attention—but it seemed unfair. These little ones had traveled so far, and they deserved their prize.
“Kara,” said a voice, small and tremulous, “stop it. No matter what she did, this isn’t right. This isn’t you.”
Kara swatted at the voice but ended up with a handful of soft hair instead. Hair that felt familiar, somehow.
Part of the swarm broke free, squeezing through a tiny gap in the roof and escaping into the night.
“Taff?” Kara asked.
The boy put his arms around her and nestled against her neck. Kara could still smell lemon drops on
his breath. “Make them go away,” he said. There was a new hitch in his breathing. Kara made a mental note to apply a mint poultice to his chest before he went to sleep that night, and another section of the swarm, larger than the first, fluttered reluctantly into the sky.
“I want to go home,” Taff said.
Kara nodded. Home. Her own bed. Father. She rose, intending to release the remainder of the swarm and set Grace free, when Simon Loder grabbed Taff’s head and slammed it against the floor. Taff lay instantly still—more still than any living human should be—and though Kara did not scream, a small murmur of surprise escaped her lips. Simon bent down next to Taff and took his head between his hands, positioning his body for a final, neck-crunching twist.
Kara killed him.
It was surprisingly simple. Kara willed her children to remove this life from the world, and they complied, lifting the giant off his feet with ease and pressing him against the ceiling as they emptied their stingers. Those with only one sting to give pattered to the floor like black rain, a sacrifice for their queen. Simon followed with far less elegance, his face already ballooning beyond recognition as the poison completed its work. He gasped once for breath, but his windpipe had already closed and all that came out was a defeated hiss.
No one would need to close his eyes. They had already swollen shut.
A solitary soldier landed gently on Kara’s hand, as though awaiting further orders. It was only then that she recognized the insect: a haverfly. During summer they glowed briefly with a pretty bluish hue. Taff and Kara had spent many nights running along the stream, collecting them in glass jars. She had thought them harmless.
But anything can kill, can’t it, Kara?
“Go,” she told the haverfly. It lingered briefly on the end of her fingertip and then set off. The rest of its brethren followed.
Kara could hear footsteps in the distance, voices, but that didn’t matter now. Taff wasn’t moving. A pool of dark blood stained the floor beneath his head.
“Taff?” Kara whispered.
She held one trembling hand over his mouth, searching for a breath.
“Get her!” Grace screamed. “She killed Simon! Witch! Witch!”
Multiple hands shoved Kara to the ground, and she found herself looking up into the faces of half a dozen graycloaks. “Wait!” she screamed. “My brother is hurt. You have to help—” Before she could finish, something cold and foul-smelling was shoved into her mouth, suffocating further protestations. Kara had just enough time to see Grace’s smile of triumph as she hid the grimoire beneath her cloak. Then someone pulled a sack over Kara’s head and she saw no more.