Sea Witch Rising

by Sarah Henning

  “Perfect.”

  I accept the amethyst and let it warm my palms. It sits there, heavy as a heartbeat, intense and alive. The magic within me shies away at first, dubious. I cup my fingers around the stone, not letting my magic have an out. The warmth spreads against the backs of my fingertips. This time, my power unfurls itself, tentative curiosity finally making contact.

  The sensation reminds me of being at the canyon with my sisters, the hot breath of the earth gurgling up from the depths of the crag in the sea floor, steaming as it comes in contact with the cool waters of our typical depths.

  “These may provide guidance as well.” Katrine presses a stack of books to her chest and then dumps them onto the bed. “These are the grimoires I’ve found most helpful.”

  I’ve never worked magic from a spell book. We write down our spells, of course we do, but it’s simply a matter of record—Father and his ledgers. But as children we don’t learn our magic from a list of sentences, rather from intuition and observation. A mermaid feeling out the magic within her is simply another part of growing up. It’s organic in a way this is not.

  But this is land magic. Unlike mermaids, witches are not made of magic. They must call to the magic in a different way. This is something I need to understand if I am to help them.

  Now that I have the stone in my hands, I’m hesitant to part with it. I fold it into my left palm and gently flip open the nearest book, its spine worn. The pages fall open to a well-loved spell, this one called upon more often than any other. The words are faded and the room is dim, and I have to hold the page close to read them.

  It’s a spell for deboning fish.

  My chest falls and I thumb to the next broken line of spine, the next popular spell.

  Fermentation.

  There’s a hand-written notation next to it with chicken-scratch ratios of malt, hops, yeasts.

  Hvidtøl. A quick-ferment magic hvidtøl.

  This is a magical cookbook. We can’t destroy a U-boat operation by magically deboning fish and brewing ale.

  “Katrine, can you point me to the more complex spells?” I set the book in my hand far to the side. The cat lays itself out upon it. All yours, Tandsmør.

  She bends over the bed, running her fingers along the remaining spines. She selects one that is thin but appears disproportionately heavy for all the value in it—a leaf of gold in a shabby binding.

  The Spliid Grimoire.

  “This one was my grandmother’s favorite,” Katrine says, rubbing a thumb absently across the bed quilt. “She taught me the few things I know.”

  “Have you tried anything in it?”

  Katrine sighs. “I haven’t had a use for these spells in my life.”

  This sounds exactly like the kind of book I need.

  The old witch hands me the book but doesn’t look away, her lioness eyes scrolling the features of my face. She’s a person from whom it doesn’t do to hide—she already knows anyway. “Are you looking for a spell to go home?”

  My eyes flash to hers and my mouth drops open, but nothing comes out.

  “I don’t know if it’s possible, Runa. But I do know if it is, I will help you find it in these books. We only have the tale of Annemette and her journey, passed down from a witch known as the Healer of Kings . . . aunt to the woman known as the sea witch. That story is newer than these books, but the magic is as old as time.”

  I press the leather cover of The Spliid Grimoire to my chest.

  “You’ll help me? Really?”

  There’s a knock on the door, but before Katrine responds, Sofie comes barreling through, eyes wide and color in her cheeks for the first time since the wedding.

  “Agnata has returned!”

  In the main room, Agnata has collapsed in a heap at the table. It’s been raining again, and she’s a dripping, shivering, sniveling mess. Her dark hair is in tatters, cheeks paste white, hands shaking as she accepts a mug of something hot—tea. Not something we drink below.

  Sofie presses a rag to the girl’s head, sopping up what she can to keep it from running onto the floor. Agnata downs several large gulps of tea, and between the dried hair and the warmth streaming down her throat, the shaking lessens. Sofie tosses the rag over a chair to dry.

  Still hugging her hands tightly to the mug, Agnata finally seems willing to accept her audience, glancing up at us, her dark eyes strained and red. She nearly drops her drink when she sees me. “What are you doing here?”

  I don’t blink. “I was invited.”

  Agnata checks the validity of my statement with Sofie, Will, and Katrine. They silently vouch for me.

  Sofie sits next to her, pulling a chair close. “Tell us what happened.”

  I pointedly take a seat directly across from Agnata—I know she’s been through a lot, but I’m not going to baby her. Katrine, meanwhile, putters over to the stove to warm the remainder of the clam soup and the heel of a loaf of rye. Tandsmør nips at her heels, eager for whatever she might share.

  “The king’s guard held me and questioned me,” she says, turning to Sofie. “Then your father came in and questioned me. And then they questioned me together.”

  Somehow, with all that buildup, I was expecting something a little more descriptive. Sofie and Will must think so too, as they exchange a look.

  “What did you tell them?” Sofie goads gently.

  “Nothing about this! And I didn’t know what happened in the chambers. Only that the king was dead.” She pauses, her voice breaking. “I told them that I saw you covered with blood and relayed your story, Sofie, but then you disappeared and I told them I didn’t know a thing about that . . .”

  “Good. I was frantic, but I didn’t want you to know when I left the castle,” Sofie concedes, grappling at her friend’s hand. “It was bad enough that you knew where I’d go.”

  Agnata nods. “I didn’t tell them about this place, I swear. I didn’t tell them anything.”

  “And that was enough that they let you go?” I say, slightly incredulous—the guards in the sea kingdom would do no such thing, even the youngest of them. Even Calder. Yet Agnata confirms it.

  Wiping his brow, Will interjects. “What about Phillip? Did they question him?”

  “He left—went back with his family to Copenhagen. He’s out. I don’t know any more than that. I took my first chance to leave and then ran.”

  Will nods. From what he’s told me, Phillip isn’t a wizard, simply someone with an interest in stopping the war any way he could. He knew there were more players, but not the magical realities of the other members. Though we are one weaker, it’s probably best he’s gone.

  Sofie leans in. “Did they ask after Will? Do they think he’s part of this?”

  Agnata shakes her head, emphatic. “They didn’t ask after you once.”

  Will frowns. “Really? No one noticed I didn’t return with the guards in my search party?”

  Again, she shakes her head, just enough water left in it to pepper the floorboards. “They may have realized it by now, but to be honest, from the cell where they had me, I could see the line of motorcars backed up down the drive. Every guest left as soon as their bags were ready. They don’t have the best tally of people right now.”

  Chaos—exactly what we want to take advantage of.

  “So, what do they think happened?” I ask.

  “They didn’t believe Sofie’s story—running away didn’t help your cause—and now they think you two are working with each other,” she says pointing to me and Sofie. “And the other girl, too.” Agnata doesn’t inspect me for my missing piece like Sofie did hours earlier; instead she simply cocks a brow. “She didn’t make it here?”

  Will answers for me. “No, she didn’t.”

  Our expressions tell the rest of the story.

  “What about Father? He thinks I could be involved?” Sofie shakes her head. “It’s just like him to toss me to the wolves as quickly as he was ready to marry me off. Anything to seal that damn deal.”

>   Agnata pipes up. “I’m sorry. It’s true. Your father is still going through with the sale. The queen mother approved it from her mourning chambers. He’s meeting with the king’s head councilman tomorrow morning—Nielsen. They expect the boats to be finished and ready for inspection within two days, and the sale will go through immediately after they’re inspected as sound. They’ll be in the water within minutes of the money exchanging hands.”

  At least this confirms it: the deal isn’t dead and buried with the king.

  Around the table, everyone is silent, still. Pensive.

  None of us need to say it. We’re all thinking the same thing.

  We have two days. We must get to work.

  22

  Evie

  WAR WILL BE COMING IN DAYS, IF NOT HOURS.

  The sea king will eulogize his daughter, ingest the very last of his ríkifjor, and gamble the fate of his people to gain the power he needs to sustain himself.

  I need to warn Runa. It’s a difficult proposition from here but not impossible.

  I stir the cauldron, picturing the girl in my mind’s eye. “Líta.”

  The liquid within shimmers, steam rising into my pores as my magic searches for her. It doesn’t allow me to communicate—it doesn’t even allow me to hear a thing, not without an added token like the tentacle the sea king wears. But hopefully, as it was in Niklas’s chambers, context will be enough.

  The steam parts, and Runa’s form appears. She’s changed clothing, into peasant linens. Her hair is clean, the blood washed away, the strawberry blond warm in the glow of candles and firelight.

  With her are three women—two young, one old enough to be the mother of any of the others—and a boy no older than the dead king.

  Wait. No.

  Three witches and a wizard.

  The women stand in a line, their profiles patterned in light and dark from a small fire lit in a fireplace. Squinting, I inspect Runa’s hands. Nik’s ring is still on her thumb. Good. In the same hand is a stone. A wave of familiarity and loss flows over me when she holds it up to the lamp. Its elegant, purple tone glimmers in the light.

  An amethyst.

  Runa holds the stone, says a command, and her left arm flashes into wildfire.

  Arms up, the three repeat the command and . . . fail. The two young girls produce exactly nothing but the command, while a few sparks fly off the older woman’s arm.

  The wizard participates as a cheering section, while lounging in a rocking chair, spinning what look to be blades of grass into daisy after daisy.

  After a second failed attempt in which they all try switching to stones of other sizes, one of the girls rushes over to the boy. Without warning, she tosses the daisies straight from his lap into the fireplace and yanks the boy over to try the spell.

  As the girl settles again next to him, her laugh changes her face enough that it’s suddenly obvious why she looks familiar.

  She’s Niklas’s bride.

  The King of Havnestad, scion of the witch-hunting Øldenburgs, was married for a few short hours to an actual witch.

  Now, that’s interesting.

  Added to my panic over the sea king’s move to violence is a sudden pang of envy. In another world, another time, I could’ve been the witch married to an Øldenburg king. Or, just as plausibly, if Tante Hansa hadn’t spent so much time protecting me from how the world saw us, I could’ve had my own little coven and spent a night practicing spells with our kind. I wouldn’t have had to hide my true self.

  Or, maybe, in another story, at this same moment, I could be an old lady in another cabin, teaching other witches spells by the light of the fire. Instead, I’m the old lady who has sentient trees instead of cats and spends her days talking mostly to herself.

  I turn back to my cauldron. The witches line up again, this time with both arms out in a blocking motion, ready for another spell.

  “They could learn so much more from you, Evie. They don’t know what they’ll meet when the sea king comes. They’re not going to be ready, especially if they can’t even pull off a simple wildfire spell. They need you; you can show them.”

  I nod but say, “The best we can do is warn them.” Then, to my cauldron, I say, “Heitr.”

  The fire beneath it shifts from a dusky red to the clear blue of dawn, the pot alive with luscious heat. From safekeeping in my cave, I retrieve a hair from each of the sea king’s remaining water-bound daughters and toss them into the cauldron. As the cauldron trembles in a rolling boil, I give my command to the universe. Exactly as the sea king did from his study.

  “Koma, Eydis. Koma, Ola. Koma, Signy.”

  The girls appear within an hour. They swim three across, all of them with their arms wrapped tightly over their chests. Fear and anger roll off them in alternating waves, and I don’t blame them, though I find it misplaced.

  “You have some nerve,” the oldest, Eydis, spits at me as they come to rest beyond my cauldron. I’ve silenced Anna yet again, and I face them on my tentacle throne. I meet her fire with a colorless face—we don’t have the time to fight.

  My nonreaction clearly annoys this girl, her eyebrows gathering sharply, her rosebud lips scrunched as if she’s tasted something sour. Though scrubbed clean for sleep, her cheekbones shine with excess diamond dust—there must never be a moment when this girl doesn’t glitter.

  “Why on earth did you call us here like this? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for us to leave the castle right now? Since we returned without Runa and were relieved of our hair, Father has us locked within the north tower. Locked in our own home! He’s so fearful we’d come to visit you again and all end up on land, chasing our sisters to our own death.”

  I cock an eyebrow at her. “You came, though, didn’t you?”

  Eydis sighs. “What choice did we have? I spelled the sense out of a first-year guard sweet on Runa.” Her eyes flash, a storm brewing. “Is it true? Is Alia dead? Did Runa fail? And what of her? Will she die too?”

  Beside her, the other sisters lean forward, the same questions on their lips, unasked. They stare at me with their own measures of hope flickering in their tired eyes.

  “Alia is dead,” I confirm, and I have to look down and away from their young faces as I deliver the news. “She failed. Runa’s deal, however, is different. She has failed, but death will not take her now.”

  “What will become of her?” asks Ola, she of the moon eyes and tight curls.

  “She will become human.”

  “Human? Human?” Signy screams, the cords in her neck as tense as violin strings. “Alia died because she wanted to be human, but Runa will be a human forever?”

  I nod.

  Ola’s lips tremble and her lash line pinks like Anna’s did in her second life. “How can you be so cruel?”

  Again, I examine the pewter sands of my cave’s sea floor as I answer. I really didn’t expect this to be so . . . difficult. My next words are chosen carefully. I’d forgotten what it was like to be gentle.

  “Alia made her choice, and I do wish it had ended differently. Runa sought something other than love; therefore, her magical exchange was different.” I meet their eyes one by one. “I expect you girls understand magic well enough to recognize this.”

  The mermaids nod tensely, and I go on.

  “Your father will try to return Runa to the sea. He needs the magic within her and her specific talent . . .”

  “The flowers,” the three of them say at once. I nod and the girls’ eyes wander to the mouth of my cave, where Runa planted my ríkifjor.

  “He believes I can bring her back. I can’t do that. She wasn’t able to complete her portion of the exchange either. The magical exchange controls all, not the witch.”

  “And Father . . . without the flowers . . . he’ll . . .” Signy trails off.

  “I don’t know enough about ríkifjor to know if he will die,” I say, “but the complications of withdrawal and his ire during that time may be deadly enough on their own.”
/>   Eydis resets her hands tightly across her chest. “So, what do you want? One of us to go up there after Runa? Adding more of us into the mix is not going to repair this disaster.”

  “You’re right: sending another of you up there, even if you wanted to go, would be foolish. That said, I need your help—Runa needs your help.”

  Eydis laughs. “If you think we’re going to help you without getting something in return, you’re crazy. We’ve been locked in a tower because of you.”

  “I understand that, and I will promise you something in return for your help.”

  “Good,” Eydis says. “Give us your remaining ríkifjor and then we’ll talk.”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” Eydis spits back. “That will buy us our freedom and Father’s good graces.”

  “It won’t,” I tell her. “He’ll ask you to grow it, and when none of you is able to, he’ll ask where it came from, and you’ll have to tell him Runa grew them for me. It’ll only prove to him that you can’t be trusted, and you’ll go to a higher tower with a more intelligent guard.”

  Signy’s eyes flash. “Well, we’re not doing your bidding without something.”

  “I do have something I can give you in good faith that you can explain away to your father.”

  One by one, each sister cocks a brow.

  “Your hair,” I tell them.

  Ola’s dinner-plate eyes narrow. “You can return our hair?”

  “Yes. And your father will be pleased, because like with each of you and all his people, he derives a measure of his power from every bit of you, especially your hair.”

  The girls have an entire wordless conversation between them. Finally, Eydis cocks her head and decrees, “We won’t listen to another word until you return it.”

  And so, I retrieve their hair, setting each skein within a clamshell before the corresponding mermaid.

  “Ávoxtr skor. Ávoxtr skor. Ávoxtr skor.”

  One by one, each girl’s hair finds its home, and with a sparkling blue light, each strand becomes just as long and lush as before, the pieces flowing over their shoulders and down their backs. One spun through with golden thread, one tipped with onyx ink, one curly enough even the water can’t weigh it straight.