The Blood Binding

by Helen Stringer

  By the time he’d finished materializing, Belladonna found herself looking at a man with fine features and a broad brow. He was wearing a simple leather top and trousers that looked like they were made of the same rough-woven material as Branwyn’s dress. His hair was brown and raggedly cut, and much of his body was stained with complex whorls and patterns by some kind of dye. But the most striking thing about him was the look of inconsolable sorrow on his face.

  “This is Belladonna and Steve,” explained Elsie. “Steve, Belladonna, this is Cradoe, Branwyn’s uncle.”

  Belladonna had heard people talk about being so surprised that their jaw dropped, but this was the first time she actually experienced it.

  “Seriously?” said Steve. “This is really…wow.”

  “The lady Elsie tells me that you have seen my niece and that she is still bound.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “And the Spirits of the Black Water. They are still there?”

  “Yes,” said Belladonna. “We saw them. Branwyn said that was why she couldn’t leave. That she was part of the binding.”

  “She spoke the truth.”

  Belladonna’s heart sank. It looked like Mrs. Jay was right. There really are some things that can’t be fixed.

  “And…?” said Elsie. “Tell them what you told me.”

  “He lied,” said Cradoe quietly. “Riagan lied to us all. It did not need to be a blood binding. He just wanted to rid himself of those who were most favored of our Pennaeth.”

  “Your what?”

  “Our…leader, the chieftain of our people.”

  “But…what threat could Branwyn have been? She was just a girl.”

  “She was the last. I was told by those that came when their time was run, that he broke the binding of my blood himself, but let it be known that my mother had not been true and that was why my blood was impure. It was untrue, but she was cast out and sent across the shifting sands to die.”

  “Yikes,” said Steve. “You guys were strict!”

  “You said the binding could be done without blood,” said Belladonna. “Can you tell us how? Could we free her?”

  “I don’t know if she can be freed, but I can tell you the charm,” said Cradoe, sadly. “So much time has passed.”

  Belladonna pulled a notebook and pen out of her bag.

  “Right,” she said. “Fire away.”

  “What?”

  “They speak strangely sometimes,” explained Eslie.

  “Pots and kettles,” muttered Steve.

  “She wants you to tell them the charm.”

  “It is the Nine Herbs Charm,” said Cradoe. “But with two additions. The Spirits of the Black Waters must be bound with eleven.”

  “The Nine Herbs Charm?” Belladonna looked at him. “I’m sorry, we don’t know…”

  “You do not know the Charm of Nine? But how do you treat your sick or those poisoned by sorcery?”

  “We use the Charm of Antibiotics,” said Steve.

  “And that is a strong magic?”

  “Yes,” said Belladonna, glaring at Steve. “But could you tell us what we need to free Branwyn?”

  “Mugwyrt, attorlathe, stune--”

  “Hang on,” said Steve. “I’ve never heard of any of these.”

  “They’ll be old names,” said Belladonna. “We can look them up. Go on, please.”

  “Wegbrade, maethe, stithe, wergulu, fille, and finule,” said Cradoe, as if he were reciting a familiar verse. “The others are herriff and lasar. All must be crushed to a paste, mixed with the juice of apples and poured around the perimeter of the place of binding.”

  “And you think this will work?”

  “I do not. But perhaps it is worth the trying. She has been sitting in the marsh for a long time now.”

  “It’s not actually a--”

  “Thank you,” said Belladonna, flashing Steve another glare. “We’ll try our best.”

  “I must go now,” said Cradoe, uneasily. “This place brings back too much pain, too much evil, too much sorrow.”

  “I’m sorry, old chap,” said Elsie, patting him on the back. “It’s a rum do, alright, but you’ve shown real pluck.”

  “What?” Cradoe stared at her, his miserable expression even more hangdog.

  “She said we understand that this was difficult for you, and we admire your bravery,” explained Belladonna.

  “Seriously?” said Steve. “That was what she said? Have you got some kind of phrase-book?”

  “I wish you luck,” said Cradoe, in a way that made it clear that the only kind of luck he had ever encountered had been bad.

  Belladonna started to thank him, but he had already vanished.

  “Well done, Elsie,” said Steve. “How on earth did you find him?”

  “It was easy,” said Elsie, smiling. “A friend told me that there are some people that never go to the parties. I guessed that he’d be one of them. Edward the Confessor never goes, so I just popped over to the House of Mists to ask him where Cradoe might be…and bobs-your-uncle!”

  “That still leaves us with this list,” said Belladonna, looking at the column of unfamiliar names.

  “Maybe this will be one of the times when this stupid library is actually useful,” said Steve. “What do you bet there’s some old herbal or something here?”

  “Let’s split up,” said Belladonna. “I’ll take gardening. Steve and Elsie, you take history ‘cause there’s more of that.”

  For the next ten minutes, all was silent as they each scanned the shelves for anything that might be useful.

  “Ha!” said Belladonna. “There’s a book here called “The Complete Book of Herbs” and it’s got pictures!”

  She took the book over to one of the tables and was soon joined by Steve with an old book on the languages of ancient Britain.

  “Look,” he said. “There’s a glossary in the back.” He pointed to a word. “Isn’t that one of the herbs?”

  Belladonna checked the list.

  “Stune…yes!”

  “It says here it’s Lamb’s Cress or Hairy Bittercress.”

  “Oh, it’s not in the herb book.”

  “Uh oh.”

  “Wait,” said Elsie. “I’ve heard of that. It’s some kind of mustard. My grandmother used to add it to stews sometimes.”

  She ran over to the tiny food section, followed by Steve.

  “There! Try that one!” she said, pointing at the oldest book on the shelf. “Look up stews or casseroles.”

  Steve did as he was told, and a smile slowly spread across his face.

  “She’s right. It looks like some kind of weed, though.”

  He showed the page to Belladonna, who sketched the plant as well as she could, and drew an arrow connecting it to the word.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” she said. “Mucgwyrt.”

  “That’s got to be mugwort,” said Steve.

  Belladonna looked it up in the book. The picture showed a silvery-leafed shrub.

  “I’ve seen that,” she said, amazed that something so seemingly arcane could just be a common garden plant. “Our neighbors have a bush of it in their front garden. Okay, next is…attorlathe…”

  “Betony,” said Steve. “It says here that it used to be planted in churchyards to discourage ghosts.”

  “Honestly,” laughed Elsie, “Why on earth would we want to hang around churchyards? The living really are daft sometimes!”

  “I bet there’s some in St. Abelard’s,” said Belladonna. “Aya should know it. Right…um…wegbrade.”

  “Hosta.”

  “Mrs. Naylor next door has some of those too – in the herbaceous border next to the mugwort.”

  “Jolly useful neighbor!” said Elsie.

  “Maethe.”

  “Uh…chamomile.”

  Belladonna looked it up in the herb book.

  “Yes! It looks sort of like a yellow daisy. Oh, it’s what they use to make chamomile tea—I think my mum has some
of that in the kitchen cupboard. Next…stithe.”

  “Nettle,” read Steve. “Well, that’s easy, there’s a big patch of them over by the football pitch.”

  “Wergulu.”

  “Crab-apple.”

  “There’s a tree in the garden of the convent next door,” said Elsie. “I can see it from the attic. I think it’s still got some fruit on it.”

  “How on earth are we going to get into a convent?” asked Steve.

  “Over the wall, perhaps,” suggested Elsie.

  “Or maybe we could just ring the bell and ask them for some,” said Belladonna, rolling her eyes. “Right…fille.”

  “Thyme. That’s easy.”

  “Finule.”

  “Fennel. Yuck. Hate that stuff. Too aniseedy.”

  “Yes, but they’ll have it at the shops. Okay, last two…herrif.”

  “Burdock.”

  “That’s easy, too,” said Elsie. “Burdock always grows near nettles.”

  “Last one – lasar.”

  “Laserpiciferis…oh.”

  “What?”

  “It says here that it’s extinct.”

  “It can’t be,” gasped Belladonna, grabbing the book off Steve, before frantically scanning the index in her herbs book.

  “Maybe you can miss that one out,” suggested Elsie.

  “You know that won’t work,” said Steve. “If we’ve learned anything, it’s that a single change to a potion completely alters what it does. Remember the manticore?”

  “I wasn’t actually there, but I get your point. It won’t work, then, will it? We’ll have to find another way.”

  “No, wait,” said Belladonna. “It’s extinct.”

  “Not getting your point, old thing,” said Elsie.

  “Extinct,” repeated Belladonna. “Like dinosaurs and mammoths…and you.”

  “Wait…you think it might be growing in the Land of the Dead?”

  “Why not? The Queen of the Abyss, Miss Parker, that is, said that everything that has ever lived and died was somewhere on the Other Side.”

  “You’re joking, right?” said Steve. “You want us to go to the Other Side to find a plant we’ve never seen?”

  “We don’t even know what it looks like,” said Elsie.

  “We’ll ask,” said Belladonna. “Who wrote your book, Steve?”

  “Ummm…Gertrude Jekyll.”

  “Is she dead?”

  Steve flipped to the front of the book and scanned the biography.

  “Yes. 1932. She was born in 1843. It says she was a really famous garden designer.”

  “Garden designer?” said Elsie. “Can I see?”

  Steve stepped aside and turned the pages for her, as a smile spread slowly across her face.

  “I know exactly where she’ll be! See you there!”

  “Wait,” yelled Belladonna, stopping Elsie mid-dematerialization. “Why do we have to come? Can’t you just bring it? We’ve got all these other things to find.”

  “If I bring it, it’ll just vanish when I hand it to you. If it’s going to exist in the Land of the Living, a living person has to fetch it.”

  Steve marched over to the Classics shelves, rearranged the books in alphabetical order and stood back as the door to the Sibyl’s temple slid open.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get this done.”

  “But lunch is nearly over,” complained Belladonna. “We’ll miss all our afternoon classes!”

  “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.”

  “We’re going to get in so much trouble,” muttered Belladonna, as she joined the grinning Steve by the door. “See you in a few minutes, Elsie.”

  “Righty-ho!”

  “Um…could you go first?” asked Steve.

  Belladonna rolled her eyes and took his key-ring flashlight.

  “Honestly,” she said. “I don’t see how you can be so scared of leggy insects when you keep dropping spiders onto the chess club’s boards.”

  “That’s different. It isn’t dark.”

  “That makes no sense,” muttered Belladonna as they stepped through the door and started the descent.

  Journeys usually feel shorter once you’ve done them a few times, but the aged winding staircase beneath the school library always felt never ending. Eventually, however, they arrived in the Cumaean Sibyl’s temple. The torches on either side of the great stone chair sprang to life and the Sibyl’s disembodied voice echoed around the chamber.

  “WHO DARES TO…oh, it’s you again.”

  “Yes, sorry,” said Belladonna. “But we just need to use the lift.”

  “You don’t need to know the future?”

  “Not this time. Thanks, though,” said Steve.

  “Not even a little?” asked the Sibyl, rather plaintively. “I could tell you if it’s going to rain tomorrow.”

  “We don’t really need an oracle for that,” said Steve, smiling. “Maybe next time.”

  “’Bye,” said Belladonna. “Sorry.”

  “Typical,” muttered the Sibyl.

  “Arate Thyras!” commanded Belladonna.

  “Oh, I see,” complained the voice of the Sibyl, which had moved from the vicinity of the great stone chair to somewhere up in the ceiling near the stairs. “Now you know ancient Greek. Very clever.”

  The doors of the elevator slid open and Belladonna and Steve stepped inside. Steve pressed the now-familiar button for the Land of the Dead, and the lift shot off sideways, before descending rapidly at a slight angle and landing with a bump.

  Belladonna said the ancient Greek for “open the doors” again and they found themselves back in the huge rotunda of the House of Mists, the home of the ghosts’ seat of government, the Conclave of Shadow.

  Elsie was waiting, but other than that, the building was strangely silent.

  “Where is everyone?” asked Belladonna.

  “Getting ready for Halloween,” said Elsie. “Come on, she’s in the garden.”

  She led they way out of the huge doors, across the pillared portico, and down to the garden that had so impressed Belladonna the first time she saw it, with its lawns and arbors, interlocking flower beds and meandering paths. It had been beautiful then, even though everything had been dead, but now it was simply glorious, the flowers and foliage cascading over each other in a riot of color and fragrance.

  Elsie walked to the small pavilion in the center of the garden and tapped on the side of the open door.

  “Hello?” she called, cautiously.

  “Just a moment! I’m thinning a seedbox!” The voice was slightly husky and ridiculously posh, like people in old movies.

  “I bet she’s got secateurs,” whispered Steve.

  “Shh!”

  “Ah, well now! What can I do for you?”

  Even though Belladonna knew that the dead could choose to be any age they wanted, for some reason she had still been expecting a ninety year old woman. But the girl who stepped out into the sunlight was young and hearty, her cheeks flushed pink from working. She was wearing an elegant pale blue and white striped crinoline dress, but had hoisted the hem nearly up to her knees with yellow drawstrings knotted at her waist. On her feet were a pair of high button boots, somewhat muddy from working in the beds, while elegant gardening gloves protected her hands.

  “Hello, Miss Jekyll,” said Belladonna, shaking her hand.

  “It’s pronounced Jeekle, actually, but please just call me Gertrude.”

  “Really?” said Steve. “But what about ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?’”

  “That is supposed to be pronounced Jeekle too, dear. Robert Louis Stevenson was a friend of my brother’s, you see. So…young Elsie, here, tells me you’re looking for a plant.”

  “Yes,” said Belladonna, pleased that she wasn’t going to have to explain the whole thing again. “It’s called…um…hang on…”

  She retrieved the list from her pocket and handed it to Gertrude.

  “My goodness,” she said. “What appalling handwriting
you have. Don’t they teach copperplate any more?”

  “No,” said Steve. “They’re mostly pleased if we can string a few sentences together without saying ‘axe, ‘like,’ or ‘y’know.’”

  “Dear me. You’ll be telling me we’ve lost the Empire, next.”

  “Well, actually--” began Steve.

  “It’s the last one,” said Belladonna, hastily, digging Steve in the ribs.

  “Laserpiciferis,” read Gertrude. “Well, I’ve heard of it, of course, but it was extinct well before my time. Let’s ask Seneca, he’s up at the house.”

  “Really?” said Steve. “I thought everyone was getting ready for these parties we’ve been hearing so much about.”

  “Stoic philosophers don’t go to parties, dear. Come along!”

  She grabbed a large sun hat from a chair near the door, tied the ribbons under her chin, and marched back toward the house with Belladonna, Steve and Elsie running to catch up.

  She finally stopped in the middle of the rotunda, and yelled: “Seneca!”

  No reply.

  “Come along, Seneca, I know you’re here! It’s Gertrude!”

  A door creaked open near the stairs and a sour-faced man peered out.

  “I don’t care who it is. I’m not going to any blasted parties!”

  “We’re not trying to get you to go to a party, dear, we just want to know what a plant looked like.”

  “What plant?”

  “

  Laserpiciferis ,” said Belladonna.

  “Are you alive?” asked Seneca, looking her up and down.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s extinct.”

  “We know that,” said Steve. “We just want to know what it looked like.”

  “Humph,” growled Seneca. “Wait here.”

  The door closed with a click that was followed by the sound of rummaging and things falling off shelves. Then, just as Belladonna had decided he wasn’t going to come back, the door creaked open again and Seneca thrust an unrolled scroll at Gertrude.

  “That’s it. The one on the left.”

  “Oh, I know where that is!” said Gertrude. “Thank you, Seneca. Come along everyone!”

  And she was off again, out of the doors and down the garden.

  “I wonder if she had this much energy when she was alive,” muttered Steve.