by Laird Hunt
“Have you no fire? No light?” I said. I shivered as I said this for I had spat what was left of the root on the ground before entering and there was a draft coming down the chimney as well as drops of rain.
She turned and looked at me, cocked her head.
“But there is fire enough here to burn down a barn and all is brightly lit. Can’t you see it?”
I shook my head. The woman frowned and lifted her arms. She groped at the piece of old string on her wrist as if reassuring herself it was still there. She shut her eyes and moved her lips and whispered more words in what seemed like the same strange language she had used before.
“Can you see it now? Can you feel the fine fire and hear the kettle sing?”
“I can’t, mistress. I’m sorry.”
The old woman opened her eyes and shrugged. “Come and sit a little closer to me, that’s a good girl.”
“I am not Eliza,” I said.
“Of course you’re not, Goody, and nor am I. Eliza lives in her sweet stone cottage and tends her grand garden and writes her tale and waits on the pleasure of her master and the master of us all. We do not forget. We never do. How could we? Why should we? But never mind that now, come closer. With my old ears I can’t hear you when you speak as well as I might.”
I did not much like to do it but pulled my chair a little closer to hers.
“Closer,” she said.
I moved my chair again.
“Still closer,” she said.
I hesitated but could not seem to do anything but move it one last time.
We sat now almost knee to knee. There was a smell of old wet cloth, of fouled water, of folds and flaps left to pile too deeply. So closely did her blanket and my skirt mingle near the floor and her feet and my shoes scrape and bump that I could not say if the smells came from me or from her. A smile that seemed larger by far than her wrinkled face could accommodate had curled over her lips when I sat and now something like a tongue but long and dark came out and dabbed up and down at them. Her eyelids gave a flutter when this thing had finished its work and she sighed.
“Give it to me now, that’s a good girl,” she said.
Her hand floated up and hung in the air between us. My old granny’s hands had been curled and blotched like this one. I had often held them after her work with the clams or as she sat dozing in her chair before my mother took her away. I had pressed my cheek to them. Rubbed them with chopped mint and oil. The old woman’s gaze was fixed on my skirt pocket. If her eyes blinked, I did not see it.
“Give it to me,” she said with shaking arm now full outstretched.
I would have given it to her. For in her voice I felt the waters of the well and the dropped leaves swirling all around me. This was the path I had chosen; I could see that now. She would have her prize and I would wander away into the deepest part of the woods and wear old berries for my eyes. Or climb up her chimney or crawl into her empty kettle. Or jump back into the well and drown. But even as I moved my hand toward my pocket, Captain Jane, dressed in her wolf-skin cloak, burst through the front door, swept into the room, took two quick steps toward us, and smacked the old woman’s hand away from me. She then smacked the old woman, knocked her straight off her chair. I gasped and stood, thinking to go to the old woman’s aid, but instead of lying in a heap where she had hit, the old woman gave an angry cry, half rose, and, with a speed that startled me, scuttled off to a corner of the room. There she turned, crouched, gathered her blanket around her, and glared at us. As I watched, the glare fell away and a sly look replaced it. She held out her arms. She was naked under the blanket.
“Come and give us a kiss, young darling,” she said. “And give me what you fetched. It will save you years of trouble if you do. Years of peril and pain. Did you read what I wrote on the leaves I dropped around you? I need no quill of goose’s tail. I need no paper. I need no nail. I scratch my meaning with the tooth of a ferret on leaves as old as stones. You’ve been warned. Give me what you have. Stand away from that thief or she will steal it from you. She means to have everything and quick.”
“This is Captain Jane, who helps those lost in the wood!” I said.
“I know her and call her thief,” said the old woman. “Traitor and thief to those who have helped her in the past. Make her give me back my cloak. Make her give back all she has stolen from me. Come now, deary, do not fear, take it now and bring it here.”
Her voice, which had been high and thin, had dropped as she spoke, even more than it had when I had frolicked in fury in the water below her, as if it were emerging from a hole much deeper than a well, and, hearing, I began to turn toward Captain Jane, to lift my hands, to reach for the cloak.
“Take it now, my pretty cow,” said the old woman, and my hands, seeking purchase, caressed the smooth, soft fur until Captain Jane struck them down.
“Follow me,” she said, moving toward the door. “Don’t listen to her and follow close.”
Her voice was not so deep but it was fierce and loud. I dropped my hands and took one last look at the old woman—who, still crouching, had closed her eyes and lifted her own hooked hands high in the air and begun to speak in her strange language—then stepped quickly away from her and out the door.
As soon as I had drawn even with Captain Jane I started to speak. But she cut me short.
“Not now, love,” she said. “Not here.”
Chapter 18
It was more than an hour of rude walking through the night before Captain Jane would speak to me at all and then only to instruct me sharply not to lag. Every minute or so she would cast a glance over her shoulder into the trees behind us and twice she made me stop and crouch silently on the forest floor. The second time she did this she unclasped her cloak and covered us with it. I could hardly breathe under the heavy fur and had to grip her forearm to keep my focus and not be smothered. If she felt my nails, which dug deeply, she gave no sign.
“She is desperate and at the end of her strength and has called out her greatest servants to try and catch us,” she whispered. “The greatest servants she has left to her. It’s I who wear this sweet black blanket now, so the wolves won’t bother us. And count your blessings it’s not her who calls the swarm!”
“The one that chased that poor man?”
“There are no poor men. Not even among the wretches.”
“He only tried to help, to tell me to take my berries and run away home.”
“I know that, dear. He wants us clear of the woods. He wants all of us gone.”
“So you chased him away. For having tried to help me.”
“Not I.”
“Then who?”
Instead of answering the question, Captain Jane whispered, “Do you still have it? The thing that sat blobbed and fat in your pocket and that your fingers were reaching for when I came in. The thing that old teacup in her broken cottage is spending her last strength to get.”
I felt at my pocket. “Yes,” I said. “If she commands all these great servants, then why didn’t she just take it from me?”
“Because it must be freely given.”
“I did not feel free when I sat before her, nor when I swam in that foul water. I felt as if I was doing what I had been told.”
“Speak more quietly. That means nothing. Those were only small tricks. Drops of grease to ease the turning of your mind. You told her you would help her.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I have been watching and listening, deary, and a good thing too.”
Captain Jane growled these last words, then put her finger to her lips, pulled the cloak off of us both, and bade me follow. Told me to fly on my feet, now, if I didn’t want to be supper for Granny Someone, for that was who I had been fetching things for, that was whose house I had been in. Off in the near distance I thought I heard a heavy crashing. It was full dark and the way was tangled, but I had on my sturdy shoes and, damp as I still was, I ran. Faster than I had ever moved my feet. Once, a brood c
ow had chased me for coming too close to her calf, and there were some who saw me that day who said they had never seen anyone move faster. But that night in the wood, no matter how quickly I kicked my feet, I couldn’t close the distance between me and Captain Jane. She ran like she was being sucked along a string of lightning, and if she hadn’t finally stopped, I know I would have lost her and gone running forever through the dark or been swept up in the claws of our pursuer. But stop Captain Jane did, and suddenly enough that I almost missed her and her wolf cloak in the dark. I was so winded that I bent straight over and retched. Captain Jane did not breathe heavily at all. Her eyes were fixed on the path behind us. I regained my breath, stood up straight.
“Why has it stopped?” I asked.
“It cannot visit here. Its chase is done.”
“Here where? Where is this? Where are we?”
I spoke too loudly in my fresh confusion. Dark maple and tangled mulberry surrounded us and there was a chill of mist to make further misery of my damp clothing.
“In my house. Where even Granny Someone’s servants may not come.”
“But who is she?”
“Have you never heard of her before tonight?”
I told her I had heard that name spoken more than once at Eliza’s but thought she must be some old, kind friend who came with presents. Now, though, I did not like the name for I had seen the waking part of what answered to it.
“She is the greatest of us who live in the woods.”
“Are there more of you I have not met?”
“There is only one of me, deary!”
Captain Jane winked, then reached into her small bag and pulled a nutshell from it and out of the nutshell she scraped a paste that she rubbed into the raw place where I had squeezed her arm. As she rubbed, a wolf howled. It was not far away. Captain Jane put away her nutshell and pulled tight the edges of her cloak. It shone somehow in the dark light and I thought for a moment the howl had come straight from it.
“So is it hers, this cloak you wear that kept us safe from the spirit?”
She shrugged as if I had asked about a stolen apple or a handful of hay gone missing from a barn.
“Granny Someone has a piece of string on her wrist like you do.”
She slipped a long, thick finger under her own piece and pulled hard on it as if to show me how sturdy it was.
“They don’t keep their color forever, though. This used to be near crimson. It was so bold you might have thought I’d cut a canal around my wrist. You could have splashed in it and swum. Round and round and round and done!”
“You’re as mad as she is.”
“Perhaps I am.”
“Are we safe now?”
“Never. Not in these woods. And not even with this cloak that makes the wolves call out to me with such love. But I do know Granny Someone’s spirits will not trouble us anymore this night.”
“Who says Granny Someone’s servants may not come here?”
“Why, the lord of this wood and many a land beyond, love.”
“Who is this lord?”
“Red Boy, love.”
“Red Boy?”
I saw a quick red rippling in the trees, then fell and dreamed.
Chapter 19
I was back at my old house near the great, waving sea. My husband was at the shore with my son and had clambered out onto some rocks and was holding my son up in the air above deep water and playing at pretending to drop him. My son was crying. My son could speak and said he did not want to go down into the water this day. My husband saw me coming toward them. “Here is your mother, she will catch you, she always takes good care of you, she always keeps you safe,” said my husband. “Catch him, Goody!” he called and let go. As my son fell, the water below him turned orange, then brown, then deepest, darkest red. I leaped to try and catch him and we both dropped through the cold, one after the other, and drowned.
“Come, love,” said Captain Jane when I opened my eyes. I stood straight up.
“Is it still there?”
“You mean that precious thing in your pocket? I haven’t touched it. Nor would I without your leave. You spoke and fainted.”
“Not that,” I said, though I felt quickly at the front of my dress to be sure. “I saw something. Before I fell. Something in the woods. Like a length of red rope flying through the trees.”
She raised her eyebrow and clicked her tongue. Looked at her forearm. If there had been nail marks there before, they were now gone. I should pray, I thought, for the dark was heavy all around, but when I bowed my head and pressed my hands together, my palms felt as if they had begun to burn.
“Not in this woods, deary,” said Captain Jane.
“You are a witch,” I said.
“I do not know that word. I am what Red Boy calls me. We are all what Red Boy has told us we are. Once Red Boy has bellowed in your ear you are his forever.”
“Eliza too?”
“Eliza most of all.”
“I saw no red boy at Eliza’s house.”
“How can you be sure?”
“You play at Change About.”
She raised an eyebrow. She laughed and shrugged. “I’ve heard it called other things and called it other things myself.”
“It’s what Eliza calls it.”
“Eliza has many notions, for now she writes her tale and has time for them. Has she taken you to her water to swim? She has lovely waters. Change About, indeed! One is you, two is me, three is her, four is she!”
She gave a hop as she said each number. When she said four, she landed with a great bang on the leaf-covered ground.
“Your master is a boy?” I asked.
She laughed.
I thought of my son. My quiet, dirty, dancing little man. “I would not take my lessons from a boy.”
“You say that now, love.”
“He must be much greater than a child. A child is a tiny thing. What can a child do?”
“Red Boy is and does what he pleases. He can come and whisper truth about your tomorrow as he rides your heartstrings into the world. If you didn’t know how to listen, you would think you were hearing the wind.”
“I would know what I was hearing.”
“Would you, now?”
“What does he look like?”
“What is your worst dream?”
“I think I saw him in Eliza’s room, the little one at the end of the corridor, and standing on the water near Eliza’s house. And he was here, near us, before I fell, just now.”
“Oh, he is near us.”
“I want to go home.”
For I did want this as I stood there next to Captain Jane. I wanted it for having tried to get there so hard and failed. And failed again. For having been down the well and into Granny Someone’s foyer. I wanted to go home more than anything else in the world.
“I know, deary,” said Captain Jane. “And I can take you there. After all, we must make use of it. For it is mine now. This wondrous thing. The cloak I wear is not my only new treasure. Come and see.”
As she spoke, she led me a few steps through the trees to what I took at first for a lidless chest then saw as we stepped closer was something else.
“It is a fine boat, isn’t it?” said Captain Jane. “I tried it earlier when I fetched your shoes from where you had left them by the stream.”
“A boat?”
“I cannot leave these woods without one.”
“That’s a strange rule!”
“Rules are the way of the world! Did you never dance? Did you never stomp your foot around a ring of fire? Which way do you step? Which way do you stomp? How do you decide?”
She gave a light step, then a smart, hard stomp. Then she clapped her hands and pointed again at the thing before us.
The boat resembled a high-walled cart without wheels. It looked as though the softest wind would blow it on its side.
“A few fine tricks with her voice she may still know, but she is too old and too weak and does not
need this boat anymore,” Captain Jane said, as if speaking to herself. “There was a time you could not come within a mile of her house without disturbing her sleep and if she caught you it was terrible. She had me once, lured me deep into the trees when I was no older than you, then took me below the ground and kept me for many days in one of her dark caves. They lie below her house. Below the woods. Below the world. But she is so old now. There is no log left to fire her furnace. You saw how I was able to strike her! To make her fall off her chair and run from me. Even in her own parlor. Still, her charms may be failing her, and she cannot weave a glamour for anyone with eyes, but if you had given her what she asked for she would have found fresh strength, then killed you and come for me and found more.”
I pressed at the thing in my pocket. It was like a peeled egg, cooked then kept in the chill of a brine bucket.
“You are a thief,” I said.
“Perhaps,” she said. “And where’s the fault? It’s my time. Not hers. The cloak was easy. She left it lying outside her door as she slept. Right there on the ground! Almost as if she meant for me to have it. And she might have. There is always part of us admits we are done when the rest is not yet ready. This other lovely thing was not so easy, though. Not so easy at all!”
I did not respond. Only walked around and around the “lovely” thing. It was made of human skin and of human bones. I could see part of a face on its side. It had been stretched so much, its features could not be fully marked. There were bones thick and thin and skin lighter and darker in its design.
“Have the skins of those you helped the other night gone into this?” I said. “Perhaps the ones I saw you with that night?”
Captain Jane’s smile fell from her face. She stepped closer to me than I liked. “This boat is old, dear. Its skins were stretched long ago and not by me nor any now in these trees. I helped those souls you saw with me. They made it away with Captain Jane’s help, my help, just like you did!”
Seeing I had pushed at her harder than I should, I told her I was sorry for having doubted, to which she muttered something I couldn’t hear. As we stood there, and as the night crept forward, a thought dressed as a memory came to me.