by Frank Tuttle
“I promised Mama the same thing.” I couldn’t get all the words out in one breath. “Last thing I need out there is another body to watch.”
“And what you need most is somebody who can use Sight to see in the dark.”
“We’ll have torches.”
We finally reached the landing. I hustled into my room, Gertriss still on my heels, and yanked Toadsticker from his wrapping of old shirts.
“Torches won’t show what you need to be a seein’.”
“You slip back into country talk when you’re agitated, Miss.”
“And you change the subject when you know you’re wrong, mister.”
I shrugged. Gertriss went still, and I swear the room got cold.
She closed her eyes.
The hairs on the back of my neck tried to fall in formation and march.
“What are you doing?”
“Having a look,” she said, slurring her words.
She tensed.
“It’s back. Not close, but thinking about it.”
“Which direction?”
Gertriss lifted her right arm, pointed, then turned. I figured she was facing the barn we’d set as out last-resort meeting place.
“Has it seen you?”
“Not yet.” She opened her eyes, blinked, shivered.
And grinned.
“We’d better hurry. You can’t tie me up and leave me. You haven’t got time.”
I sighed, cussed.
“Stay behind me. Don’t use your Sight outside without warning me. Your word now, or I send you back to Mama, no second chances.”
She nodded. We made for the ground floor. I drew a frown from Gertriss by darting momentarily back into the kitchen. And then we trooped for the big red doors and the dark beyond them.
Marlo was there, an axe in his hand. The blade gleamed, and though it had never chopped anything but firewood that blade wasn’t anything I’d want swung at me.
A crowd had gathered. Those who could clustered at the three-bolt windows and peeped out, oohing and ahing at the dark like they could see anything at all.
No one stood anywhere near the doors though.
“I reckon you know your own business,” said Marlo, after a glance at Gertriss.
“And I reckon you should mind your own,” said Gertriss.
Marlo puffed up and went red, but before he could sputter out a response Lady Werewilk appeared.
She was dragging an umbrella stand that she’d stuffed with swords. “I thought you might need to be armed,” she began, trailing off when she saw Toadsticker and Marlo’s well-honed axe.
But Gertriss grinned like she’d just knocked over a bowl full of earrings.
“Oooh, I’ll take this one, if I may,” she said, yanking a short straight blade out of the jumble.
Lady Werewilk nodded, bemused.
“I believe it was actually used in the War.” She eyed the blades critically, selected one very similar, and damned if she didn’t spin it around in her left hand with as much skill as my old army sword master.
“I’ll be by the door with this, Mr. Markhat.”
I saluted her with Toadsticker, and she returned it-perfectly.
“I’m full of surprises.”
She threw back the bolts, and pulled the door open.
Marlo grunted, laid the axe on his shoulder and marched outside. I followed, Gertriss on my heels, and the three of us went half a dozen paces and stopped.
Gertriss laid her unlit torch onto the one burning by the door. It flared to life, trailing the stench of pitch. I grinned as Gertriss tried to figure out which hand to use for the torch and which to hold the sword.
“Torch in your right,” I offered. “Sword in your left, and then stick it point first in the dirt. You’re better off in a pinch with the torch anyway, unless you’re trained with a blade. Are you trained with a blade, Miss?”
The look she gave me would doubtlessly have sent an entire herd of pigs running for the stable or wherever it is that pigs are domiciled in quaint, scenic Pot Lockney.
Marlo helped by guffawing. Before Gertriss could turn on him, I motioned toward the barns.
“The woman with the big lungs is that way,” I said.
Marlo nodded. “So that’s where we head?”
“Nope. We go door to door like we don’t know where she is. That’ll take us that way anyway, but it won’t be quick. Gertriss, you keep an eye-a regular eye-out for women in the trees. Marlo, you watch the ground. If anybody’s been out here planting stakes while everyone was eating I want to know it.”
Marlo frowned. “We got banshees in the pines, and you’re worried about some damned surveyor’s sticks?”
“That’s what I was hired to worry about. And for all we know the banshee is the one leaving the stakes.”
“Banshees don’t give a damn ’bout land deals.”
“I’ll ask her when I meet her,” I said. My eyes were adjusted to the dark, helped by Gertriss’ flickering torch.
“Let’s get started.”
Gertriss managed to shove her shortsword through her sash. I put her at the back of the line so the light from the torch wouldn’t blind Marlo and I.
Eight outbuildings. It took us maybe twenty minutes to make a show of checking the windows and doors to see if they were all locked or shuttered-they were-and to light the door torches that flanked every opening. By the time we were nearing the barns, there was just enough stray torchlight flickering about to turn the Werewilk estate into something out of a nightmare.
Shadows danced. Huge old blood-oaks towered above us, spreading their boughs wide and blotting out the sky. The dancing red torchlight illuminated tossing leaves far above, giving the impression of furtive movement to join the dry, wooden whispers of the night.
Gertriss whispered occasional updates. She seemed sure the banshee was staying put, well out of the farthest reach of the torchlight.
I kept my eyes out for surveyor’s stakes and hoped she was right.
Marlo kept a white-knuckled grip on his ax and nearly let fly with it when a rooster flew down on his head from an outhouse roof to our right. Truth is, I nearly did the same with Toadsticker while Gertriss shamed us both by shooing the dim-witted bird away with her torch.
Finally, the last dwelling checked and found secure, we halted, gathered in the flickering half-circle of light cast by the door torches.
The barns loomed up a short distance away, more shadow than shape. A wind walked through the corn, and the ways the stalks bent and rasped made the hairs on my neck crawl the same way they had done on a regular basis during the War.
Gertriss caught my eye, glanced at the furthest barn, nodded slightly, just once.
“You two start bringing people out.” I spoke during a lull of wind so my voice would carry. “I’ll stay here, keep an eye out.”
Gertriss started to argue. I gave her a hard look. Marlo turned his back and started walking.
Gertriss handed me her torch.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
And then she was off, rushing to catch up with Marlo.
I figured I had maybe a quarter of an hour. It would take that long for the gaggle of staff to find their way home. So I stuck Gertriss’s torch in the ground, and then I walked to the edge of the light and I put my back to the barns.
Toadsticker’s hilt was warm and reassuring in my hand. Which made sticking it through my belt a difficult action to take.
The corn rustled. Leaves and limbs made dry furtive noises overhead. I imagined all manner of creeping horrors, slinking up behind me.
I’d had my back to the barns for maybe three long minutes-just enough time for Marlo and Gertriss to reach the House-when I heard a twig snap behind me.
I judged the distance to be maybe twenty feet.
And that, I decided, was plenty close enough.
My hand was already in my pocket. I moved it slowly.
I turned around. Slowly. Calmly. In my outstretched rig
ht hand was a slice of warm corn bread with a chunk of butter still melting in the middle.
And there she was.
Just standing there.
A banshee.
Every hair on every spot of my body stood on end.
She appeared to be a tiny woman, naked save for a liberal coating of dirt and spider-webs. I don’t mean a woman of small stature-I mean a human woman who had grown to full size and then been somehow shrunk down to a stature befitting a child. I’ve seen trick mirrors at Yule houses that can either shrink or enlarge reflections. The banshee might have stepped out of the former.
Except for perhaps her ears. In the dim light, and under all that matted hair, I couldn’t be sure, but it looked as though her ears might be pointed, as those of the Elves were said to have been.
Her hair was the color of dusty hay. It was wild and matted, encrusted with spider webs and leaves and twigs. Her eyes, though, were big and bright and blue.
I looked into them. The ghost of the huldra let out a scream that nearly brought my hands to my ears. But it made me look away, and that spared me the experience that had nearly overwhelmed Gertriss.
I fixed my gaze on the tiny woman’s filthy chin. Her face was a mask of indifference.
No fear, no anger, no emotion whatsoever. She just stood there, halted in mid-step, watching me with those wide blue eyes.
“I’ve never met a person of your lineage before,” I said. “What do I call you?”
She tilted her head and eyed me quizzically, but neither spoke nor howled.
“My name is Markhat. Do you have a name?”
Again, a blank stare. A vagrant breeze arose, and carried a whiff of her scent to me. I had to fight not to gag. I’d have to tell Mama banshees weren’t strong proponents of bathing.
My banshee kept staring. But she still wasn’t running.
I laid the corn bread and the napkin down on the ground and took three long steps back away from it. The corn bread was mashed a bit, but the butter had melted into it and the smell was heavenly. “Well, I’ll call you Buttercup for now. Is that all right with you? May I call you Buttercup?”
I heard voices from the House as Marlo and Gertriss brought out the servants. The banshee heard them too.
She just-left. Vanished. I saw only the briefest suggestion of movement, and then there was just an empty spot where she’d stood. No footfalls, no sound at all. I couldn’t even guess at the direction she might have taken.
I didn’t even notice, at first, that the hot buttered corn bread was gone too.
She’d left the napkin, but not a crumb.
I scanned the shadows.
“Good night, Buttercup.”
An owl hooted. A couple of dogs began to bark. People and torches began to fill the night.
“Next time, I’ll bring a biscuit.”
I bowed and turned and grabbed up the torch and drew Toadsticker just for show.
Gertriss was at my side in mere moments.
“I saw her get very close to you-did you see her? Did she try to hurt you?”
“When we’re inside.” People streamed past, all in hurry. Half were armed with the contents of Lady Werewilk’s basket of mayhem, and I hoped no one managed to cut off a finger or a toe before they put themselves to bed. A few were still chewing, not content to let a night of leaping ladies and menacing banshees put them off Lady Werewilk’s generosity.
Gertriss nodded. “If anyone did any surveying out here tonight they did it in a hurry, and they didn’t set out any stakes.”
I nodded and returned a few good evenings and set a leisurely pace back to the gaudy red doors.
“The night, as they say, is still young.”
“I had Lady Werewilk start some fresh coffee. Will I be taking the first watch, or will you?”
I smiled as we crossed the threshold of House Werewilk and the massive doors slammed shut behind us.
“You’ll have the first one. But all you’ll do is listen for the dogs, and you’ll wake me up if you hear them. You won’t go outside. For any reason. Is that clear, Miss?”
“I won’t go outside. I’ll wake you if the dogs raise a ruckus.”
“Good enough.”
The House was quiet. I could hear Lady Werewilk speaking to someone upstairs, but that was it.
“She told the lot of them that anyone not in their bed by the time we got back would be leaving for good in the morning.”
“And they obeyed?”
Gertriss nodded. “She meant it. Even the drunk ones could see that. Too, she was holding a bow at the time.”
“That does sometimes serve to emphasize one’s point.” I used Toadsticker to gently pry a pair of snoring hounds off the nearest couch before I flopped down across it myself. “I’ll be right here, Miss, sword in one hand and lightning in the other. Don’t let me sleep more than three hours.”
Gertriss nodded and was off, her eyes alight with the same youthful zeal for her new duties that I imagined I once wore.
Age takes it toll, though. I was sound asleep before either of the dogs dared join me on Lady Werewilk’s poor abused settee.
Chapter Nine
The night passed uneventfully, if one discounts the inherent discomforts of sleeping with restless canines and keeping one hand on the hilt of one’s newly acquired enchanted sword.
Gertriss and I traded watches every three hours. If Buttercup made any furtive dashes toward more of Lady Werewilk’s corn bread, she did so without alerting the resident dogs or Gertriss and her Sight.
I hadn’t told Gertriss about my trick with the corn bread yet. I told her most of the truth-that the banshee had simply stared at me, and then vanished without so much as a goodbye shriek. I decided I wouldn’t talk about any table scraps, unless they appeared to be luring the banshee within grabbing distance. I could just hear Mama cawing about the folly of feeding banshees from one’s pocket, and believe me Mama doesn’t need anything new to caw about.
We did talk about other things, though. Gertriss agreed that Weexil’s timely vanishing act was probably related to our arrival, and not just to coincidence. I couldn’t get much more than a vague description of what Gertriss had seen when she was out on the roof-ledge trying to loop a rope around Serris. According to Gertriss, Buttercup had just appeared behind them, standing there on the tiles as easy as a blue-jay. And then she’d turned those big luminous eyes on them, and let loose her trademark banshee howl.
The rest was a blur of falling over the ledge, grabbing at ropes and nightgowns and being sure she was about to plunge to her death.
Which she very nearly had. I cringed at the thought, suddenly aware that I’d taken her on as an employee with no warning as to the risks involved.
And though I’d not spoken a word of that, Gertriss had frowned at me over her coffee and informed me that she was a grown woman who had made the decision to come to Werewilk all on her own, thank you very much.
I was too tired to snort and mention Mama’s authorship of the whole plan. But I guess Gertriss saw that too, because she sighed and changed the subject.
“So tomorrow. What then?”
I shrugged. “First, we tell Scatter and Lank to spread the word that the market price for fresh surveyor’s sticks is a pair of coppers apiece.”
Gertriss cocked her head. “How will finding more of them help? We already know they don’t have any marks.”
“Greed, Miss. Pure and simple greed. A pair of coppers is a nice sum, out here in the rustic wild. Now, it’s one thing to ignore Lady Werewilk when she orders you to patrol the grounds at night. But I’m offering coin, just for bringing in sticks. In the daytime.”
Gertriss nodded in dawning understanding.
“And you think they’ll fan right out in a frenzy, scour the woods for you, maybe even find out where the surveyors are camped.”
It was my turn to grin and nod.
“And here I was, thinking we’d be riding out at first light doing the looking ourselves.”
“I might have done just that, back when I first started. These days, I try and let human nature do some of the hard labor for me.”
“And Lady Werewilk? Will she be happy when you tell her she’s buying up surveyor’s stakes?”
“She’s got banshees in her well-house and panicked painters under her roof. Come daylight, I’d bet my best socks that at least two of her staff quit. Two more if-” I nearly slipped up and called her Buttercup, “-if the banshee puts in another appearance the night after that. She won’t blink at buying stakes for two coppers each, Miss. That I can promise you.”
“You can stop calling me Miss, Mr. Markhat.”
“Certainly, Miss.” I heard a clock strike somewhere off in the shadows. “My turn to listen for the mutts. The couch has lumps and it smells like beer.”
“Everything in this place smells like beer.” Gertriss rose and rubbed her eyes. “See you in three hours.”
And so she had. By the time the sluggard sun managed to lumber high enough to cast some light through the trees, we’d both come to loathe that beer-scented couch.
On the heels of the sunrise came the breakfast crew. They were four in number, each apparently vying for the coveted title of Most Surly Woman South Of Rannit. I asked my usual questions, got nothing but grunts and glares and mumbled denials.
I kept on, planting myself firmly in their way, and making it painfully obvious I wasn’t going to budge until one of them deigned to speak.
Her name was Gladys. She’d been at House Werewilk longer than all but three of the staff, not counting Singh, who had apparently dropped fully formed straight from High Heaven on the Day of Creation and assumed his duties as butler right before the formation of firmament.
And if there was one thing Gladys hated, she opined, it was people getting between her and her cook-stove when there were biscuits to be baked.
I just kept grinning and kept reclining on the aforementioned cook-stove.
“So tell me, Gladys. When did the banshee first start coming around the House?”
Gladys gave me a hard glare and set her jaw. The rolling pin clutched in her flour-crusted right hand looked less like a cooking utensil and more like an instrument of mayhem with each passing moment.