Hold Fast the Knight

by Lotus Oakes

  "Please," she said quietly. "It's over with."

  Violette looked at Ariel, meeting that stare with one of her own. Edgar couldn't begin to guess what was passing between them; he could only watch as Violette's lips twisted further and her lip curled. Without looking away from Ariel's face, she said, "He said all sorts of things that I won't repeat over a perfectly good meal. His soul was a petty dark thing, and when I plucked it out, it was so small I nearly lost it. A man like that doesn't deserve much of anything."

  Edgar took a deep breath, slow and careful. His chest felt tight, like it sometimes did before a summer storm, the tension moving up to his throat now. He still couldn't look away, not from Violette's stern expression nor Ariel's worry.

  Finally, after nearly a full minute had dragged out, Ariel said, "It was a long time ago, Violette. I don't like having him in our backyard any more than I liked what he wanted to do." She finally broke their strange eye contact to look at Edgar. He tried not to fidget as she studied him with a closer intensity than before; it was similar to how Violette had looked at him when he'd first arrived at their little home. He could feel his face going warm under her gaze.

  Off to the side, Violette's breath hissed out through her teeth. She cast her gaze upwards, as if seeking strength.

  "Fine," she said. "Fine. We'll see about sending him back to his home. Wherever it is."

  There was a beat and then Ariel smiled, her whole face warming. Popular folklore said that the Dortai family descended from the sun itself, and in that moment Edgar could see why. She slid her hand down Violette's arm, a soft soothing gesture, until she could take Violette's hand instead, then turned the force of that smile onto Edgar.

  "You're right," she said. "Even if someone's been... unpleasant, in life, there should be a limit to how long they take their punishment."

  "Oh, don't you start," Violette said, but there was no real heat to her voice. She turned her hand so she could grasp Ariel's in return, their long fingers lacing together. "What part of he signed his soul over to me are you two forgetting?"

  "It doesn't seem like his soul is doing you much good," Edgar said. "All it's doing is lying with your trees and complaining to anyone that will listen. You don't even keep it in the house, so what's the point of keeping it at all?"

  "Well," Violette said, then let out a hard breath, so that her cheeks puffed out. Edgar's youngest sister liked to do similar when she was being sulky, but Violette's eyes were bright now, the corners of her mouth twitching in what looked very much like a suppressed smile. "A trophy. That's what he was. But he's not a very good one of those either, is he?"

  "Not in particular," Ariel said. She leaned forward, setting her chin on her free hand. "I've been telling you that for months. If I go out there he just shouts at me."

  "All right, all right," Violette sighed. She waved a hand in a limp-wristed, disdainful gesture. It looked like a dismissal, but the fine hairs on Edgar's arms stood up, and his skin broke into goosebumps. He drew in a breath that tasted like copper and ozone. When he made a startled noise, she looked at him sidelong. "You all right there, Sir Would-Be Knight?"

  "It's Edgar," Edgar said, a bit awkwardly. "Did you just do magic?"

  "Yes I did, very good," Violette said. "Nothing too much. I just moved those dry old bones to somewhere they'll be found. Word will get back to his wife eventually." She grinned with all her teeth bared and drummed her fingers against the tabletop. "Were you expecting something worse?"

  "No," he said. "That just seems like it'd be very handy, transporting things like that with magic."

  "It's more trouble than it's worth, actually," Ariel said. "She has to be able to visualize exactly where she's transporting something, or it'll end up going through wrong, or in pieces."

  "Excuse you," Violette said. She drew herself up as tall as she could in her seat and wrinkled her nose. "Who's the witch, between us?"

  "I haven't forgotten that one batch of cough syrup," Ariel shot back. "I've never seen Widow Finnes so angry before, and I never have again. I hope I never will."

  "So I made a slight miscalculation, that happens to everyone―"

  "And I remember the fever balm, you can't tell me you've forgotten that."

  "That was because she had moved things around; I told her I need everything precisely right―"

  Edgar sat back in his chair at last. He snagged the second piece of bread he'd wanted initially, nibbling it as he watched the two of them argue back and forth. His parents had always been more quiet and tense in their arguments, but his best friend's parents had squabbled like this, sniping words worn soft and familiar, all the sharp edges long since filed away.

  "Fever balm?" he said, during a brief lull.

  "Oh," said Ariel, and she looked at him again. Her eyes were wide and her face a little flushed. She bit her lower lip on what looked like a smile. "Violette works as an apothecary. I help her."

  "She means I force her to help," Violette said quickly, the words coming in over the end of Ariel's sentence. "I need a good and steady hand for the work, after all, and I only have two of my own. Human help is more reliable than any sort of summoning; you can't just go tossing magic around carelessly!" She gestured again, now with both hands. "Especially not with medicine. We deal through an old woman who is never satisfied with my work."

  "She is, too," Ariel said in a murmur. "Just because you always have to fight her―"

  "I will fight anyone that calls my work sloppy, Ariel, I just will."

  "I didn't think a witch would need to do business," Edgar said. He thought for a moment, breaking off a piece of his bread to swipe it through the gravy on his plate. "Or I guess I expected you'd be selling things like love potions. Hexes? Things like that. But if you didn't, you'd just be able to just... magic yourself up food. Drinks. Just as you needed them."

  "You cannot live on magic alone," Violette said. She crossed her arms again, her expression going pensive for a moment. "It takes energy to perform, and you can't just be constantly creating without putting something back in. Magicked food still has to come from somewhere."

  "There's also no such thing as a love potion, really," Ariel said. "You can't force something like that."

  "The body is easier than the mind," Violette said. "And the physical that has no mind at all is the easiest to work with." She and Ariel exchanged a brief thoughtful look, and though Edgar wanted to ask, he busied himself with another tear of bread, just watching. After a moment, Violette shrugged. "But in short, yes, even a witch has to work if she wants to eat. And there's a far greater market for remedies than romance."

  "The witch might think about dealing with things closer to home as well," Ariel said. She lowered her voice as she spoke, but it was just clear enough that Edgar could guess it was deliberate. She tapped the tines of her fork against her plate. "The roof, for example―"

  "The roof is fine as it is," Violette said. She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. "Only one squirrel has gotten in, and my work was never in any trouble."

  "You wrecked half of your workspace trying to catch it, I wouldn't say that was no trouble."

  "Ariel, dar―don't you forget your place," Violette said. She tipped further back in her chair, lifting one foot to brace it against the edge of the table. "I am a witch, I have more important things to worry about than holes in the roof―"

  "I could help," Edgar said, around a mouthful of bread.

  Both women stopped to look at him. He blinked back, mild as anything.

  It was Violette who responded first, leaning forward against the table and drumming her fingers against the top. Her eyes were bright. "Really?"

  "My da's eyesight hasn't been doing so good, lately," Edgar said. "His hip too. His leg's always been bad. So if Ma needs something fixed on the roof, it's up to me. Or my brother. It won't be a professional job, but I've had practice."

  "Done," Violette said immediately.

  Ariel snorted.

  "Don't encourage her too much,
" she said to Edgar. "She'll start thinking she can take advantage of you."

  "You were the one just fussing about a squirrel," Violette said. Her nose wrinkled, though she didn't lean back from her tense crouch, still watching Edgar with eagerness. "And I suppose you're right; it would be nice to keep any others from getting in." She rolled her eyes. "They'll get into the garden regardless, but they don't have to get into my work."

  Edgar fidgeted. The corners of his mouth kept trying to lift into a smile, small and embarrassed. There was something oddly charming, if he was honest, about the idea that a witch, powerful and magical, could be irritated by something as mundane and small as a squirrel. "I really don't mind," he said. "The thing I need to do to―to win―won't be until the end of the month, right? I don't want to just be sitting around doing nothing in the meantime. It'd be nice to feel useful."

  "Done, seriously," Violette said again. "After breakfast, I'll give you the tools you need, and you can get started."

  "She means thank you," Ariel said, but she was smiling, looking at Violette with soft eyes. When she looked at Edgar, that look barely changed, and he found himself blushing all over again. "From me, too."

  Edgar finally found his smile, lopsided and tentative in return. He felt suddenly ten feet tall.

  "Of course," he said.

  *~*~*

  He slept well that night, better than he expected. Instead of a blanket on the kitchen floor or―as he'd expected―being turned to sleep outside, Ariel had led him to a small, plain bedroom after dinner. It was barely large enough to hold more than the small bed, but it was quiet and dark and it was his alone for the moment. That was a luxury he'd never expected, and he accepted it with more glee than he wanted to admit.

  The next morning, as promised, Violette brought him a set of tools and a ladder. She drifted after him to watch him set up, and as he ascended he glanced down to see her waving at him, bright-eyed, before she flounced off. He heard her calling something to Ariel before the door closed, and he was alone.

  Once on the roof and settled, he looked around. At a glance, he could see three larger holes and one shadow, where the structure had begun to sag ominously. In a couple of other places, some of the shingles looked like they'd been snapped cleanly off, leaving awkward patches. Did storms come through the Silver Forest? Or perhaps it was just one of Violette's spells gone awry? Her lecture the night before had been informative, but only in the vaguest sense.

  Either way, the broken shingles would be the easiest to repair, and those he set himself to first, humming under his breath.

  When the patching was finished, he stood to stretch, then walked a careful round of the roof. He stepped lightly, careful of any potential weaknesses, testing with his toes before he put his full weight down. The search yielded one last hole, tucked close in the shadow of the chimney. Smoke already rose from the latter in thin wispy tendrils. Edgar studied it for a moment, then went to fetch his tools.

  As he approached again, though, it wasn't heat he felt pouring from the chimney, but an intense, bone-chilling cold. His teeth started to chatter as he crouched down, and under his sleeves his skin tightened into itchy goosebumps. He paused to chafe at both of his arms and blow on his fingers to try and warm them, and when he looked up, there was a man looking down at him.

  He looked thin and haggard, which added years to his appearance at first glance, with heavy lines bracketing his drooping mouth and deep furrows between his brows. It took a moment of closer inspection for Edgar to realize they were roughly the same age in spite of that. The angle of his head was odd, tilted a little too sharply to one side. He wore plain leather armor, and his long legs trailed into formless mist. When he noticed that last part, Edgar sat back on his heels and looked up.

  "Hello," he said. To his surprise, he felt significantly less nervous than he thought he should be; perhaps it had been the talk with the skeleton the night before. Either way, he felt almost confident in addressing the stranger. "You're a ghost, aren't you?"

  The man stared at him with hollow dark eyes and then nodded. It looked odd with his head at its particular angle, and the motion was slow and ponderous, as if it took immense physical effort just to move.

  "I am," he said a beat later. His voice was thick, the words slurred and mushy. "I am here to warn you."

  "Oh," Edgar said. He took one of the spare shingles he'd been provided and laid it against the whole by the chimney: it was only about the span of three fingers. One would be enough. It was, perhaps, too much to hope that the ghost would be friendlier than the skeleton from the night before. He added, "You really needn't worry. I've heard some of it already. It's all right, I still mean to save the princess."

  "The princess," the ghost said. Edgar looked up in time to see the corners of the ghost's mouth twitch, as if he wanted to do more with it, and couldn't quite manage. A strange light came into the ghost's eyes, and his shoulders and arms began to shake. The tremor grew and grew, until his whole body was vibrating with it. "The princess."

  "Princess Ariel," Edgar said helpfully. At least this one seemed to realize that Ariel was a princess, which was heartening compared to the skeleton last night.

  "The p―princess," the ghost said, with trembling lips, "is a whore."

  Or maybe not, Edgar amended with wince. He drew himself up taller, frowning. "Don't say that. Not about a princess. Or anyone! I mean, honestly, that―"

  "A whore," the ghost said again, practically spitting the word. Edgar was briefly glad that as a ghost, he had no actual spittle to let fly. "She tricked me. She took advantage of me. 'Sir Knight, please, I am so lonely, I haven't known a man's touch'―hhhha." The last was another spit, and the ghost took a jerky step forward. His fading leg clipped into Edgar's arm, and the touch was so intensely cold the limb went numb. Edgar yanked back with a startled noise. The ghost didn't even seem to notice, gesturing fiercely now, though his head remained cocked hard to the side. "She lured me up here. S-she said there were stars. They were lovely. We, we could make love under the stars. And then she," here the ghost made a few vague pinwheeling motions with his arms, and Edgar scrambled out of the way, "she p-p-pushed me. She pushed. Me."

  Edgar frowned. He thought about Ariel's smile from the night before, and how gently she'd touched Violette's arm. What sort of accusation was that?

  "If it was dark, it was an accident," he said. "She wouldn't do something like that."

  "Wouldn't she?" The ghost made a dry croaking noise in his throat. His hands opened and closed, like he couldn't quite grasp something. "Wouldn't she? You'll see." He turned to Edgar now, and his head tilted even further on his neck, to an impossible angle―oh.

  His neck really is broken. Edgar rocked back on his heels and up to his feet. Once upright, he could see that he stood slightly taller than the ghost and broader at the shoulders, though the ghost remained fixed in place, glaring balefully. It was an oddly pathetic sight, the anger and resentment radiating off the ghost in nearly palpable waves, all of it swirling and unable to make actual physical contact with the world.

  As gently as possible, Edgar said, "I'm very sorry about what happened to you. But I want to know what the princess has to say about it, too. It really could just have been an accident."

  The ghost snarled. His lips peeled back in an animal sort of gesture from surprisingly even white teeth. "I'm telling you," he said. "You should trust my word over that of a whore. I am a knight. I served my king faithfully and well. What has she done? She fled her duties. She fled her responsibilities. I am trying to help you."

  "I appreciate it, I really do," Edgar said, still slow and careful. He held up both hands in a placating gesture, but to his relief, though the ghost paced and shook, he couldn't seem to step beyond the shadow of the chimney. Even so, he took a careful step back himself, just to put a little extra distance between them. "It's just, that's a pretty big thing to accuse someone of. I wouldn't want to make a judgment without hearing both sides of it. Right?"

&
nbsp; "Listen to me," the ghost said. "Don't be fooled by those eyes, or the sweet things she promises you. She's a liar. She's a liar, and the witch is a liar. She promised if I worked I would win, and I could have the princess, and this! This is what happened to me! This, this pathetic existence, this is all I have."

  The rambling continued, raising and lowering in cadence, showing no sign of stopping. Any time Edgar took a breath to maybe step in, the ghost continued without pause. It wasn't like he needed to breathe, after all. After a solid minute of listening, Edgar sighed. He dropped one hand and rubbed the back of his neck with the other. "I'll just come back later," he said. "You, you keep going as you like."

  When Edgar took a step back, though, the ghost snapped to abrupt focus. His gaze fixed on Edgar with unblinking intensity. The fire in his eyes seemed even brighter than before―fervent, perhaps, like he could will himself into solid flesh and step away from his prison to confront Edgar directly. His lips were pulled back from his mouth in an open grimace, teeth visibly clenched together.

  "Even now," he said. "You really intend to go through with this farce to the end?"

  Edgar hesitated. He kept hoping that the door below would open, and someone would call up for him. Ariel, Violette, it didn't matter, as long as someone could rescue him. In the meantime, he didn't dare break eye contact with the ghost, who was visibly seething now. Edgar started to lift his hands again, careful, as he said, "I did agree to their conditions. It wouldn't be very knightlike if I broke a promise, right?"

  "Knightlike." The ghost sneered again. "You chose the wrong princess to save."

  "It's not like there's a lot who need it," Edgar said. He took another careful step back. "I'm not sure Princess Ariel does, for that matter. But if she decides she wants it, there's nothing 'wrong' in that."

  "The witch is her lover," the ghost said. He spat the words like they were bitter, his tongue curling out of his mouth. "They lie together like animals. They fuck like beasts. She doesn't want you to save her, she wants to sacrifice you to her witch so that they can feast upon your body and bathe in your blood. I've seen them, I've seen how they come together―"