The Thickety: A Path Begins

by J. A. White

  “Of course they do,” replied Lucas. “But that doesn’t mean they deserve it. Taff is alive, Kara. You did exactly what you set out to do. Tomorrow morning this will all be over. We’re safe.”

  “But we’re leaving so many of them behind.”

  “So be it.” Kara had never heard such coldness in her friend’s voice. “What if you were the one trapped in the village? Would a single one of them even think of helping? Of course not! All they care about are themselves. That’s the way it is. The way it’s always been.”

  “We’re abandoning the Clearers too,” Kara said. “Your people. Don’t they deserve our help?”

  Lucas stiffened.

  “You can’t fight her,” he said. “She’ll kill you.”

  There was nothing to say after that. With the mare between them, Kara and Lucas crossed the field to the white fence that marked the property’s border. A dirt path lined with weatherworn stones wound deeper inland. Here, Kara would pick up the main road—which they simply called the Way—and, beneath a sheltering sky of hornbeam trees, make haste to the village.

  She swung open the gate. Blurred fingers of light blotted out the stars. In the distance the tall trees of the Thickety swayed and creaked, a beckoning song.

  It really was a beautiful island, this place. Her home.

  “Everything that happened is my responsibility,” Kara said. Shadowdancer jerked impatiently at her bit, eager to get started. Kara stroked her face tenderly. “Not only what happened to De’Noran, but what’s going to happen to Grace if she falls into the grimoire’s trap.”

  “She has spun her own web, Kara.”

  “So she should be doomed to an eternity of suffering? No one deserves that fate, no matter what evil they’ve done. I have to save her. I have to make things right.”

  “If you’re that sure,” he said, “then let me come with you.”

  Kara shook her head.

  “You can’t do this alone,” he said. “You know that—I can see it in your eyes. Let me help you.”

  “No.”

  Lucas’s expression hardened. “Too bad. There’s nothing you can do to stop me. I’m coming.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Kara asked. “There’s nothing I can do to dissuade you?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  She wanted him to come with her—that was the worst part. She didn’t want to do this alone. But instead she fingered the grimoire in her pocket and spoke the right words, and Lucas tumbled forward into her arms. Kara laid him gently on the ground. His breathing remained steady, but he would sleep for at least a few hours.

  A shadowy shape fluttered into the sky, leaving behind a small red mark on the back of Lucas’s neck and the scent of bedside candles. It was the first story Kara could remember, her mother leaning close and telling her about a special butterfly from the land of dreams whose kiss sent restless children off to a peaceful sleep.

  Kara opened the grimoire, and there it was: a perfect sketch. It would be easier to call next time, if she needed it.

  A bird and a dreamfly. Against a girl who can bend nature to her will and command the minds of men. Grace will surely be terrified.

  It probably wasn’t the wisest plan, using one of her precious spells on such a gentle conjuration. But there was no other way to get Lucas to stay behind, and she couldn’t let him risk his life. No one else would suffer for her mistakes. Especially him.

  Kara brushed the hair back from his face.

  “No matter what happens,” she said, “I’m glad I cast it.”

  She kissed him, soft, on the cheek. If this had been one of Mother’s stories, perhaps he would have stirred, awakened by the magic of her caress. But this was no story, and she was no princess.

  She was a witch.

  Sliding the grimoire carefully into her pocket, Kara swung open the gate and took her first step toward the village.

  By early afternoon, with the village almost within sight, Kara decided to find out if she could inscribe animals from memory.

  She could.

  She chose the first creature because it could protect her. The second one was its complement, capable of dealing great harm. And the third . . . she wasn’t sure exactly. It was an odd decision, but it felt right.

  It was a comfort knowing her creatures lay nestled between the pages of the notebook, ready to be called. She hoped she had chosen wisely, but since she had no idea what spells Grace would cast, it was all a guessing game anyway.

  Before closing the book, Kara spent some time staring at the last page, blank and terrible.

  She prayed she would not need it.

  The village stretched out before her. At first glance little had changed. The same one-story buildings lined the main road, painted the same eggshell white. General Store. Blacksmith. Tack Shop.

  None of the buildings had signs. People knew what they were.

  A light rain began to fall, spotting the dirt coffee-brown, and Kara pulled her cloak tightly around her. Her mother’s dress fit perfectly, but it did little to shield her against the cold. Above the door of the cobbler’s shop, a wooden chime danced in the wind, adding gentle music to the patter of raindrops. The chime was in the shape of an owl—Timoth Clen’s favorite animal—and meant to ward off magic. Kara had always found that ironic.

  She dismounted Shadowdancer and ran a hand along her mane.

  “Go on,” she said. “This isn’t your battle. You’re free.”

  Shadowdancer stood stone still. She regarded Kara with suspicion, as though this were some kind of trick.

  “I can’t protect you,” Kara said. “You need to get away from here! She’ll hurt you.” Kara leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Thank you for helping me. Now go!”

  Turning quickly before she lost her resolve, Kara took a few steps deeper into the village.

  Don’t look back, she told herself. It’ll be easier if you don’t look back.

  She looked back. Shadowdancer remained rooted to her spot.

  “Go!” Kara said as loudly as she dared. “Please.”

  Her eyes found Shadowdancer’s. Holding Kara’s gaze, the mare bent her graceful neck forward and low to the ground.

  A bow.

  And then Shadowdancer was off, a black blur racing toward a stableless existence of open plains and freedom. Kara watched the horse until she was just a dot on the horizon. It was hard to look away from such unadulterated bliss.

  When she turned around, the village was filled with people.

  A visitor watching the crowd from afar would have thought everything was all right. More than all right: Here was a bustling community of merchants and farmers, fishermen and teachers, Elders and children. Each inhabitant was living proof that the Children of the Fold were a prosperous, civilized people. Bethany James haggled over the price of a sack of flour. The Whitney sisters, their heads pressed together as they strolled along the road, gossiped about some rumor they had overheard at school. A wizened old man swept the porch of the general store.

  It could have been any day in De’Noran. Kara wondered—just for a moment—if this had all been some sort of bad dream.

  Then she looked closer.

  The man was not sweeping the dust to the street, where it belonged, but to the other side of the porch. There, a second worker, standing only a few feet away, swept the dust back again, like some bizarre game of catch. Judging by their gnarled hands and stooped shoulders, they had been at this for a long, long time.

  Perhaps the Whitney sisters were indeed gossiping, but the words came out as soft, desperate bleats.

  As Shopkeeper Wilkins held out the bag of flour to Bethany James, they haggled in the same bleat language as the Whitney sisters. Neither woman noticed the maggots that had spilled forth from the sack and found new homes on their arms and legs and faces.

  Stifling a scream, Kara moved onward. She saw more of the same: a corrupted version of the village’s daily routine. No one seemed to notice her presence.


  Is Grace punishing them? Kara wondered. And then a second, even more horrifying possibility: Or is this the way she sees the world?

  Kara found the rest of the villagers sitting around the Fenroot tree, hands folded neatly on their laps. Black half rings swelled beneath their sunken eyes. Their lips were cracked with thirst.

  How many days have they been sitting there?

  Not a leaf of the Fenroot tree remained, and its trunk, usually the rich brown of fertile soil, was as black and smooth as obsidian. Its branches sagged down at impossible angles, as though the tree itself had given up. The top of the tree, however, was where the greatest change had taken place. Here the limbs gathered together into a base, behind which a hundred sharpened branches pointed toward the heavens like the claw of an infernal beast.

  In the cradle of this unnatural throne sat Grace Stone.

  She had changed as well.

  Grace had always been beautiful, but this beauty had become a fierce and terrible thing. Her hair, ash blond and sumptuous, gathered around her ankles like a cloak. She wore a white dress cut short at the knees, revealing two legs that were whole and perfect.

  Only her eyes remained the same: a startling turquoise that swirled with the cold fire of madness.

  “Nice dress,” Grace said. “It suits you.”

  From below, Kara could just make out the black shape in Grace’s lap.

  The grimoire.

  “Ah,” said Grace, following Kara’s eyes. She placed a hand on the open book. “You came for this. I’m disappointed. I still hoped, despite everything, that we might be friends. But no. You want to steal what’s mine.”

  She doesn’t know I have my own grimoire. I have to pick the right moment. Surprise is my best weapon.

  “I have no desire for the book,” Kara said. She stared up at the tree throne with what she hoped was a determined expression. “I came to save you!”

  Grace laughed, dulcet tones beautiful enough to draw sailors to a rocky shore. Jerking on their stone seats like hideous marionettes, the congregation joined in. Their laughs were not so beautiful.

  “Save me? From what, Kara Westfall?”

  “The grimoire. It’s tricking you.”

  “And how is that, exactly? By letting me do anything I wish?”

  “There is a price for such power. Each time you cast a spell, you get closer to the end of the book, and when that happens—”

  “Then I’ll be able to cast spells without using the book at all. The grimoire told me all about it, Kara.”

  “It lied.”

  “My book obeys me. Not the other way around.”

  She was too far away to tell for sure, but Kara thought she might have seen a flicker of doubt cross Grace’s face. The congregation, unsettled by this disturbance in their universe, keened softly.

  “How many pages are left?” Kara asked. “How many pages until the Last Spell? Because, unless you listen to me, that’s exactly how long you have to . . .”

  Grace stepped off the throne. She plummeted though the air at frightening speed, her hair trailing behind her like a reverse waterfall. Just before hitting the ground, Grace vanished—and reappeared right in front of Kara.

  “You’ve tried to trick me before,” Grace said. “Remember? You told me the grimoire wouldn’t let me hurt people.” She smiled. “Well, you were wrong about that, Kara Westfall. Let me show you all the different ways.”

  Grace stroked the black book clasped in her hands and spit out a stream of words. Kara had just enough time to note Grace’s place in the grimoire—just a few pages left—and then she was airborne. She landed squarely on her back, the impact sending a puff of dirt into the sky along with the oxygen in her lungs.

  The congregation, as one, clapped gently.

  Before Kara could stand, a cold force squeezed her neck. Kara clawed at the invisible noose, but all she did was scratch bloody rivulets into her own skin. She gasped for breath, and the noose tightened, lifting her into the air. Just as the world was becoming a darkness from which Kara would never return, the spell released its hold. She fell to earth and lay in the dirt, gasping desperately for air.

  The congregation moaned their disappointment.

  When Kara looked up, Grace was standing before her. The expression on her face might have been mistaken for pity.

  “Surely you didn’t think you could fight me,” she said. “Even when you had the grimoire, your power did not compare to mine. And now.” She shook her head. “Now you’re no better than one of them. Perhaps you should just join my followers and be done with it.”

  “You need . . . to stop,” Kara said. Each word was a struggle, more air than her body was willing to impart. “The book . . . using you. It will make . . . you . . . suffer. Don’t—”

  Grace spoke a single word and set Kara on fire. Flames licked the skin between her fingers. Eyeballs boiled in sockets. Kara would have thought it impossible, but somewhere, deep within her lungs, she found the air to scream.

  And then the pain ended. In astonishment Kara held her hand in front of her. The skin was whole, without so much as a sunburn.

  “I want to say this will eventually get boring,” Grace said, “but, unlike you, I refuse to lie to another witch.” She held the grimoire open and flipped to the next page. Almost the entire weight of the book, nearly two hundred pages, rested in her left hand. She continued. “I don’t even pick the spells. The grimoire does it for me. But it’s always the right spell.” With a mocking grin, she showed Kara the next page. “Take this one right here. You can’t see it, of course, but that’s probably for the best. It’s vicious. Much different than the others. That’s the book’s way of telling me it’s time to stop playing games and put an end to this.” Grace looked at her. “And I agree.”

  Before Grace could open her mouth again, Kara touched the grimoire in her pocket and mumbled the necessary words.

  “What was that?” Grace asked. Her voice was bubbly with amusement. “Did you just try to cast a spell? Without a grimoire? Oh dear. Don’t you understand anything about magic at—”

  The gra’dak plowed into Grace just below the knees, tossing her over its squat body. She hit the ground hard but quickly rose to her feet, more stunned than hurt. Kara sent the gra’dak again, faster this time. It leaped at the last moment, its tusks knocking the grimoire from Grace’s hands.

  The book landed with a thud at Kara’s feet.

  “No!” Grace screamed, crawling toward her. “Give it to me! It’s mine!”

  The gra’dak nipped Grace’s calf with its human mouth. Then it circled the girl, its five mouths quivering eagerly, longing to finish what they had started. Exercising all her will, Kara managed to calm its violent nature, freezing it in place.

  She picked up Grace’s grimoire.

  Instantly Kara was flooded by a desire to use it that was far more powerful than before. KILLHERKILLTHEMPOWERPOWERPOWER. Before she even realized what she was doing, the grimoire was open in her shaking hands, a spell inscribing itself before her eyes. ANYTHINGYOUWANT. REVENGE. MOTHERALIVE. ALLYOURS.

  The sketch, nearly finished now, showed an achingly beautiful woman with the long, graceful neck of a swan. Kara knew the drawing’s power: the ability to grant any wish. All she had to do was speak her desire and it would be hers.

  Don’t listen. This is a thing of evil.

  “You are not my mother’s book,” Kara said, and slammed the grimoire shut.

  A dark blossom of pain spread throughout her chest. Her entire torso felt slick with blood, but she knew that it was an illusion. She recognized this pain. Looking up she saw Grace kneeling over the gra’dak, a dagger in her hands. Though there was no need, she plunged it into the dying creature one more time. Then another. Each strike of the dagger sent a sharp lance through Kara.

  I’m sorry, Kara thought as she felt the gra’dak’s spirit weaken and waver. In order to save Grace, she had taken away its power to move, and it had been unable to defend itself. I’m so sorry. I’m
so . . .

  It was gone.

  Slowly the pain began to recede, but not before Grace yanked the grimoire from her hands. Kara was too weak to stop her.

  Unmindful of the gore, Grace slipped the dagger back into her boot.

  “How did you do that?” she asked. “It’s impossible to cast a spell without a grimoire. Unless . . .” Grace’s eyes brightened. “There’s a second grimoire, isn’t there? Yes! I can see it in your eyes!” Grace clapped her hands. “Well, why didn’t you tell me that, Witch Girl? That makes everything much more fun.”

  Grace opened the grimoire and read the spell before her with unconcealed delight. It was a long one. Still too weak to stand, Kara crawled away on her elbows. She heard gentle tinkling sounds to either side of her, up and down the street. A small crack split the center of the window in the general store. The crack grew larger, heading off in every direction, inching its way along the glass like a snake.

  All at once every window in the village shattered.

  Kara shouted out her own spell, but the thunderous sound of breaking glass was so deafening that she could not hear the words. Covering her ears she watched the glass gather together in a mini-tornado, hovering just in front of Grace’s outstretched hands. It spun and twisted in the air, the sun glinting off its jagged edges in an oddly beautiful paroxysm of light.

  Grace pursed her lips and blew. The glass shot forward.

  Kara shielded her face with her hands and curled into a ball, trying to make herself as small as possible. She waited for the glass to slice her skin into a thousand pieces. It never did. Instead she heard a series of clinking sounds, like tiny icicles falling off a tree and shattering on the rocks below. The sound was peaceful, with a certain music to it.

  Kara opened her eyes.

  She was surrounded by a squirming darkness. Holding out a hand, Kara felt the silverworms she had summoned. There were hundreds of them—maybe thousands—moving close enough together that not even light could pass. A little one nipped her finger playfully as it darted by. The underside of the creature—the part facing Kara—was soft and tender to the touch. Its back and wings, however, were made of an armor as hard as steel. Down by the stream, she had once seen them form a similar phalanx to protect their young from a larger predator. Kara felt honored that they would treat her with the same devotion.