The Thickety: A Path Begins

by J. A. White

  “You murdered him.”

  Kara knew her actions were justified, but the words stung nonetheless.

  “I was defending my brother.”

  “Why would Simon wish your brother harm? Simon’s just an idiot. He can’t even think.”

  “He doesn’t have to. Grace does it for him.”

  Fen’de Stone picked up the red tome again and idly flipped through the pages.

  “Do not speak ill of my daughter, witch,” he said.

  “Did she tell you her version of what happened?” Kara asked.

  “You mean the truth? Yes. Grace told me everything. Every dark deed. Every unspeakable act. She’s had nothing but nightmares since—”

  Kara burst into laughter.

  Fen’de Stone’s eyes blazed. “Since you refuse to share the events of that night,” he said, leaning forward, “allow me to do it for you. You trapped them in the old Smythe house. It was Simon you were after. The Forest Demon—your Lord and master—ordered you to kill him. Simon is the only one who ever returned from the Thickety, and Sordyr wanted to make sure he didn’t share any of its secrets. Grace tried to reason with you, to convince you to rejoin the Path, but it was useless. You used your black magic to murder Simon. You nearly killed your own brother. If my men hadn’t arrived in time, you would have taken Grace from me too.”

  “What a thrilling story! Perhaps Grace should leave the Fold and become a talespinner.”

  Fen’de Stone rose from his chair. “My daughter would never lie to me, witch. So just answer this one question, and I promise I will end your misery at the crack of dawn.”

  “You’ve already decided I’m guilty. What else could you possibly want to know?”

  “Where’s the grimoire?”

  Kara was unable to hide her astonishment.

  “That’s right. I know about the source of your power,” the fen’de said. “I didn’t when your mother sat in your position, and I’m embarrassed by my ignorance now. Not even Timoth Clen himself knew that secret. But I’ve spent many years studying your kind, and you’ll find I’ve grown quite knowledgeable.” Fen’de Stone smiled, revealing an uneven row of yellowed teeth. “I understand why you’d want to hide the truth. Somehow it makes it all seem less impressive. It’s not you who wields the power. It’s the book.

  “So where is it?”

  Why don’t you ask your daughter? She’s a witch too.

  She longed to say the words; to a man of such extreme faith, they would be just as deadly as a sword blow. But then Kara remembered the trade Grace had offered her: You might not be powerful enough to fix your brother, but I am. Give me the book, and I promise I’ll do it.

  “Your answer?” Fen’de Stone asked.

  If Taff was badly wounded, Grace might be the only one who could save him. For that reason she couldn’t tell Fen’de Stone the truth about his daughter. He probably wouldn’t believe her, but what if he did? His graycloaks would capture Grace and maybe figure out a way to destroy the grimoire. If that happened, no one would be able to save Taff. Of course Kara had no idea how she was going to escape her cell (let alone convince Grace to heal her brother), but even a small chance to save Taff was better than none at all.

  “Answer!” Fen’de Stone exclaimed. A branchlike vein throbbed along his temple. Though still a child in years, Kara had lived hard enough to recognize madness when she saw it.

  The fen’de waited a few more moments for Kara to reply. When she did not, he opened the red tome at random.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, gazing at the page before him. “I believe we’ll start right here.”

  Kara spent the next day alone in her cell. A graycloak came to bring her porridge and a moldy loaf of bread in the morning and returned for her chamber pot just before dusk. Other than that she saw no one.

  For the first few hours of the day, Kara held her fingers beneath the single beam of sunlight that filtered through a crack in the ceiling. She turned and twisted her hand, watching the light play off her skin. If she focused hard enough, she could remove her mind from the lingering pain.

  Instead she watched the sunlight dance and worried about Taff.

  He must live.

  The thought made no logical sense—why should Taff be exempt from death?—but she clung to it anyway. To think otherwise was the end of all.

  He must live.

  Eventually Kara realized that her legs were sore from sitting so long in the same position, so she got to her feet and did her best to clean the stall. She brushed the hay into the corner, making a serviceable sleep mat, and cleared away the mud and dried horse manure. Kara supposed that the animal odor might have bothered some people, but she found it comforting. She wondered how Shadowdancer was doing. She imagined riding him through the grassy pastures west of the village, but the thought only made her sad. There was no use dreaming of impossible things.

  By lunchtime—though of course there would be no lunchtime, not for her—Kara began pacing the floor from one end to the other. Six strides back, four across. Six, four. Six, four. She was used to a constant stream of work, of never having a free moment. It would have never occurred to her that waiting for one’s death could be so boring.

  That night her efforts at sleep were interrupted, time and time again, by the dead, accusing eyes of Simon Loder.

  Cold water slapped her awake. A young graycloak stood before her brandishing an empty bucket and a smirk.

  “Rise and shine, witch,” he said.

  He dragged her out of the stable by her hair. The sun had not yet risen, and Kara’s teeth chattered uncontrollably as the morning chill bit through her soaking clothes. Four more graycloaks waited outside. One of them held a long coiled rope, which he used to bind Kara’s hands together. He shoved her into an open wagon, and they started toward the village, Kara remembering a similar trip she had taken years earlier.

  At least they didn’t put a sack over my head this time.

  When they reached the barren field where her mother had been killed, the large crowd gasped in horror. And why not? Kara was everything a witch should be: bloodied and filthy, her clothes torn and her face streaked with mud. Two graycloaks yanked Kara to her feet and dragged her forward. Tiny details suddenly seemed important. The way her toes scraped against the cold earth. The crowd parting in perfect unison as she passed. The wide, horrified eyes of the children.

  The fen’de waited for her on a newly built scaffold, and the graycloaks tossed Kara to his feet. Behind him stood Grace, wearing the traditional brown robes of a fen’de apprentice (with a brown hair ribbon to match).

  “What happened to Apprentice Cloud?” Kara asked.

  “Don’t speak that fine boy’s name,” Grace said. “There was a horrible accident, and I have agreed to honor his memory by serving in his stead.”

  Her voice was clear and pure, providing no hint that she had been the one behind Marsten Cloud’s “accident.” Kara, however, noted the way her fingers trembled slightly, longing for the touch of something they couldn’t have. Being without the grimoire, even for a few minutes, tortured her.

  She’s losing control. Marsten Cloud won’t be the last to die.

  Fen’de Stone stepped forward. He wore his traditional Service Day robe, as clean as the day it was sewn. Kara resisted the urge to soil it with her muddy handprints.

  “Kara Westfall!” he exclaimed. “You have been accused of breaking the most sanctified rule of the Fold by engaging in magic.”

  At the word magic, the crowd erupted, raucous exclamations blending together into one unified stream of violent intent.

  SAVEUSBURNTHEDEMONWITCHJUSTLIKEITSMOTHER

  The fen’de held his hand high in the air until the noise ceased.

  “The evidence weighs heavily against you, Kara Westfall. Very heavily indeed. However, we of the Fold are a merciful people, and we will give you a chance to confess your crimes.” He knelt down and placed a hand on her head, and the crowd gasped—only a man as holy as their fen’de wou
ld dare touch such a wicked creature. “Admit that you have lost your path. Tell us how you forsook Timoth Clen and all his teachings and embraced those of darkness instead.”

  “Tell us!” the crowd intoned.

  “Tell us how your mother, wicked woman, taught you her dark arts and corrupted your soul.”

  “Tell us!”

  “Tell us how you took the life of Simon Loder, that poor, innocent boy.”

  “Tell us!”

  “Tell us everything, Kara Westfall, and your death will be far quicker than you deserve. You will be washed in flames! The Clen’s will be done, in death you will be pure again!”

  At this Kara expected the crowd to erupt once more, but instead it grew eerily quiet. It took Kara a few moments to realize that they were waiting for her to respond.

  Muscles groaning in complaint, Kara managed to get to her feet. She turned and faced the villagers sitting before her. Baker Corbett. Rancher Goodwin and her twins. Elder Carlye. She had known these people her entire life and recognized none of them.

  Kara stood tall. She took a deep breath and spoke.

  “I am innocent, like my mother before me!”

  Her words were drowned out by an angry wave of voices. Only the Clearers, standing behind the back row of the congregation, remained silent. There was violence in the air, and although they might not have been its intended target, a lifetime of servitude had taught them how easily that could change.

  Kara looked for Lucas but did not see him.

  Once again Fen’de Stone raised a single hand. The crowd fell silent.

  “The witch professes her innocence,” he said. “But have no fear, Children. Your fen’de knows how to find the truth in all things.”

  The rest of the afternoon was a blur. They pinned her to the ground and laid a long wooden board over her body. One by one each member of the community placed an object on the board—stones and bricks and rusty tools—creating a crushing weight that pressed her deeper and deeper into the mud. Near the end a freckle-nosed toddler, overwhelmed by this fun game, jumped on the board himself. The crowd roared with laughter.

  Periodically Fen’de Stone would wipe away the mud from Kara’s lips and whisper the same question: Where is the grimoire?

  Kara never said a word.

  Her mind stepped away from the pain and attempted to formulate a plan. She needed to escape. She needed the grimoire. She needed Grace to heal Taff. Each need was more impossible than the last. Even when they dumped her back in her cell, her muscles limp and tender and screaming for sleep, Kara remained awake until it was nearly morning. Thinking. At one point she heard some sort of commotion outside: graycloaks barking orders, movement through the nearby trees. She thought about going to the window to have a look, but the idea of standing seemed as physically insurmountable to her as knocking down the stable walls with the push of a pinkie.

  The plan finally came to her in that foggy land just before dreaming. Perhaps it was her idea alone. Or perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps it drifted through the barred window of the stable on a whisper of autumn mornings and rotting leaves. Even later it was impossible to know for sure.

  “I hid the grimoire in the Thickety,” she said.

  Fen’de Stone placed his quill on the desk. He took a sip of tea.

  “You’re lying.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t try to trick me. The grimoire is the source of your power. You would never hide it so far away.”

  “I would if I knew I was going to be captured.”

  “No. You would use it to defend yourself.”

  Kara sighed as though the fen’de’s ignorance tested her patience.

  “I was drained from dealing with Simon Loder. Witches can’t just cast as many spells as they’d like. We get tired. Surely you knew that?”

  Fen’de Stone’s lips tightened. “Of course.” He raised a pudgy finger. “But you had no time to bring it all the way to the Thickety.”

  “I didn’t bring it. I sent it. With magic?” Kara sighed again. “Are you sure you’ve studied witches?”

  Fen’de Stone got to his feet and paced back and forth. It was the first time Kara had ever seen him so uncertain. She considered this a good sign.

  “I still don’t believe you. And if you think I lack further ways to make you speak the truth, you are very, very wrong.”

  “You have the truth. It’s only your fear that convinces you otherwise.”

  “I’m not afraid!”

  “That’s exactly the reason I sent my grimoire to the Thickety. What place on this island could be safer?”

  Fen’de Stone paused, considering the soundness of her logic. After a few moments, he took his seat and clasped his hands together.

  “Where?” he asked.

  Kara shook her head. “That’s not how it works.”

  “Yes. It is. Tell me where you’ve hidden it, and once I have the grimoire, I’ll make sure you die the next morning. It’ll be mostly painless—you have my word.”

  Kara casually moved to the rear of the stable so her back faced Fen’de Stone. She knew that this next lie would be the hardest to deliver convincingly, and if the fen’de caught a glimpse of falsehood on her face the whole desperate scheme would fall apart.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I can’t tell you. I won’t know exactly where the grimoire is until we’re close. Only then will I be able to sense it.”

  Kara turned and was relieved to see Fen’de Stone nodding, as though that made sense.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We cannot enter the Thickety. To do so is death.”

  “You fear Sordyr?”

  “I fear nothing, witch. But the laws are clear. No one can enter that cursed place. And yet . . .”

  Fen’de Stone stroked his considerable chin. Kara remained silent, knowing that he would either convince himself or not; there was nothing further she could do.

  “I’m certain an exception could be made for such a holy task. After all, the Fold was created with the single purpose of ending magic, and even if no one in the World believes anymore, we know the truth! If we were to locate this grimoire, and prove that magic still exists, it could usher in a new time for our people, a return to their former glory. Kings would enlist our services. Converts would rush to join us. Our days of cowering on this island would finally come to an end!”

  Beads of sweat ran down Fen’de Stone’s face. His eyes protruded from their sockets.

  “Perhaps this is the great task that will finally prompt the Clen’s return to his Children. And it shall be recorded that I was the one responsible.”

  Suddenly Fen’de Stone pounded his fist against her cell door, rattling the chains. His graycloaks exchanged a look of concern.

  “If this is a trick, witch, I’ll see to it that your loved ones are slaughtered for all to see.”

  Though her heart was racing, Kara managed to keep her face impassive. “Don’t you remember? My mother is dead. I tried to kill my own brother. My father hates me. Who are these loved ones you speak of? I am all alone.”

  The fen’de nodded.

  “For now,” he said.

  Two hours later a burly graycloak tossed Lucas into the cell with her.

  “If the grimoire isn’t where you say it is,” Fen’de Stone said, “I’ll slit this Stench’s throat myself.”

  “No!” Kara shouted. “He has nothing to do with this!”

  But Fen’de Stone was already walking away. “Sleep while you can,” he said. “We leave at sunrise.”

  A blackish welt darkened Lucas’s left cheekbone. Blood seeped through his torn trousers. Despite all this, he was smiling.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said.

  Kara knelt by his side. Tearing a piece from the bottom of her frock, she rubbed the grime and dried blood from Lucas’s face.

  “This is all my fault,” she said.

  “You can think that. But I choose to blame the people who locked me in here.”

/>   “He must have known we were friends, that I would do what he wants if he promised not to hurt you. Only I can’t do what he wants, because it’s impossible, and now—”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Was it terrible? How badly did they hurt you?”

  “If you just let me—”

  Without realizing it Kara had begun to scrub the bottom of his chin very hard. Lucas grabbed her hand and held it.

  “First of all, that hurts. A lot.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Second—they didn’t find me, Kara. I found them. Last night I was creeping through the woods that run out back, trying to get closer to the stable. They caught me.”

  Kara nodded, remembering. “I heard them chasing you! But why would you do that? You must have known that they would punish you.”

  She saw—to her surprise—that Lucas’s cheeks had grown pink. Kara couldn’t remember ever seeing him blush before.

  “I was trying to rescue you,” he said.

  Kara’s first reaction was anger. She opened her mouth, intending to tell Lucas that she certainly didn’t need to be rescued. That he had ruined her one and only plan, because now all she could think about was how to keep him out of harm’s way. That he was a complete moron if he thought her life was valuable enough to be worth saving.

  She meant to say all these things—she meant to scream them—but all that came out was a soft, hesitant “Oh.”

  For a few moments, there was silence. Lucas absentmindedly rubbed the place where his two fingers used to be.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate the effort,” Kara said, “because I do—I really, truly do. But what were you thinking?”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You’re just one person. A boy. Did you really expect to sneak past an entire army of graycloaks?”

  “Not the entire army. Just the ones guarding your cell.”

  “You’ve ruined everything!” Kara exclaimed. “We’re going to the Thickety tomorrow to get the grimoire, because I told him the grimoire is there, but I lied, because I thought once I got out of here I would at least have a chance to escape, and when he finds out he’s going to kill you, and it’ll be my fault. That’s if Sordyr doesn’t get us first, of course. And Taff is so sick, and if something happens to me—”