Hazel

by Rita Stradling

  “Who’s there?” Oscar said as he looked about wildly in the little remaining light that emitted from the glassless lantern.

  Not answering him, I crawled on my belly to where the gun lay, grabbed it, and flung it further into the darkness.

  “What sorcery is this?” Oscar yelled.

  I looked up to find him scrambling to his feet, the broken lantern cupped in his hand, its bare flame sputtering in the damp draft.

  Violently, Oscar brandished the lantern as if it was a weapon instead.

  “Where are you, spirit?”

  He looked around frantically, and when his gaze again passed over me, the realization hit: he couldn’t see me. For some miraculous reason, he couldn’t see me, and he didn’t seem to be looking for me either.

  I’d heard of sorcery before, of course. I knew the law that to commit sorcery is to be condemned to death. Yet I had never imagined sorcery would be so subtle as to simply hide a person in danger. In the parables and teachings of the Congregation, sorcery had been proclaimed the vilest of evils. It was the gravest crime against the Congregation.

  The practice of magic was for the gods and the magicians alone—lest the gods curse you forever into becoming an iconoclast or, if you were lucky, the Congregation condemn you to death. Yet, somehow, whatever protected me was more like a mother’s embrace than a twisted power.

  As if he knew my thoughts, Oscar whispered, “That servant . . . Judith . . . I knew there was something strange about you. Leave me alone, Sorceress. I’m glad I killed you . . .”

  The words might as well have been bullets in my chest. “No!” I screamed.

  “. . . the Congregation will reward me for it.” His eyes widened, and a small smile touched his lips. “I will say you killed Hugh.”

  And again the words slammed into me. He’d killed them both. I knew. Yet there had been hope until that moment. I screamed in rage. “No!” Tears coated my face, and I crawled toward him.

  “It makes complete sense. I’ll say I found you with the gun—you shot my brother, I tried to stop you, but—”

  I grabbed his ankle and yanked him off his feet.

  He went down with a holler and a thud. “Get away from me, you fiend!” He kicked back but missed me entirely.

  “I hate you!” I screamed as I grabbed for him again. My gloved fingers slid off his hem as I tried to grasp it.

  He was too fast for me, crawling away quickly before getting back to his feet. “I knew you were evil, Judith . . . the way you looked in my eyes until the last. Damned fiend! I am redeemed by your death—my crimes against my brother will be forgiven by the gods because I rid you from this world!” When he was on his feet, he rushed away from me, impossible to catch up to. His lantern lit the high-ceilinged tunnel as the light diminished down the passageway.

  He was going to get away with their murders. He would murder more people. Peder.

  As I crawled after him, slow on my hands and knees, my ankle screaming out with my every movement, I knew there was nothing I could do to stop Oscar escaping.

  No! He would not escape! I screamed. I arched my back, lifted my head, and I screamed a horrid, ragged sound.

  A breeze came up from somewhere deep within the underground of the manor and whipped around me. My hair stung my face as it pelted both my cheeks. The wind gusted so hard it flew up into my dress, creating a sail around me and pushing me forward. My hands and knees slid over the uneven, mossy stones.

  Almost out of sight now, my Uncle Oscar’s figure lifted off his feet. His white-blond hair rose around his head. He screamed. The lantern dropped to the ground as he flew straight up, speeding at the hall’s high roof. I heard the wet thud as he hit. His body didn’t fall straight down; the wind whipped him down into one wall, bounced him off and then hurtled him into the next. Chunks of stone rained down.

  The wind that was carrying me forward pushed harder at my back. My parachute of a dress lifted me off my feet and sent me racing over the ground. The whole thing went so quickly I barely had time to squeak a protest. Air buffeted my face, and it was hard to keep my eyes open, but I forced them so.

  When I grew closer to my uncle, I thought the mystical wind would stop. There had been some morbid purpose to this, hadn’t there? But the wind didn’t stop; I sailed right over my uncle, only gaining the quickest glance of his face. My eyes watered so much I could barely discern his features, but I saw blood, copious amounts. Then he was gone and the wind and I were sailing out of the lanterns light and into the darkness.

  “Judith?” I asked the wind. “Are you my Judith? Are you alive?”

  But either the one committing the sorcery chose not to answer or they could not.

  It takes hours to navigate the underground tunnels that web beneath the manor, yet the wind sent me speeding through the darkness for only minutes. I didn’t even feel it as we careened around corners, though we must have, as there are many corridors that separated that passageway from the outside. I know we made it out of the manor, for there before me was the bluish glow of the gas lamps that lined our road. But that was when that night ended for me, for I have no more memories from that point in time until I woke up in the custody of the Congregation.

  Chapter Six: The Great Honor

  My eyes felt stiff and goopy as I opened them to the sight of a woman sitting by my bed.

  “Judith?” I asked, my voice coming out a croak. The woman sat up straight and peered over at me while she leaned a little away. She made a harrumph sound while she examined me.

  Not Judith, I realized.

  The woman was much older, ninety if she was a day. And her features were not whatsoever similar. She had an almost-manly girth and wore her white hair in a severe bun that gave her features a stretched look at the sides. The rest of her features were mostly obscured by wrinkles.

  As she came into focus, I realized not only was the woman unfamiliar, but also the room I laid in was unfamiliar as well. It looked like our furnishings in the rooms we had for guests, but I’d never been in this one before.

  “Please,” I whispered to the woman. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was begging her for, to please bring me something, to please tell me what happened or to give me news of if my father and Judith survived. I think perhaps I was asking for all of these things. “Please, help me—”

  “Say nothing, girl,” the woman whispered before she turned forward. Lifting her chin, she called across the room, “She’s awake. You told me to tell you, and so I have.” She sat back and lifted a stretch of white lace. Taking a wooden hook, the woman looped string into the edging and knotted it through.

  Through watering eyes, I peered around. If we were in one of our guest rooms, it was either the most austere in the manor or one someone had stripped for some reason. A table sat bare beside me, its drawers a little open and also bare. The light in the room came from an open window that looked out onto the lake. No paintings hung on the walls, and where a lantern would be, there was only a slight smoke stain on the paisley wallpaper.

  A hissing filled the room, and I managed to sit up in time to see monks filling in. The elderly woman beside me took no notice of the monks whatsoever; she only continued to crochet the lace. Though the ceiling was high, the monks’ ivory-robed heads brushed the wood panels as they circled the bed I lay in. A glance down told me I still wore my crimson dress, though it was barely recognizable under layers of dust and dirt.

  I’d seen the all-black bulbous eyes of a monk before, but never this close. Their eyes protruded more than a human’s would, yet at the same time, I could almost imagine them as pits into nothingness.

  It was very strange, me on a bed surrounded by monks. It didn’t seem right. As odd and disconcerting as I found the woman, her presence at my side was almost a comfort.

  They lined the bed, forming a solid wall of elongated bodies on all sides of me and around the maid—who still didn’t seem to notice them. Their skin was so pale it nearly matched their pristine-white cloaks. They said
nothing as they stared down.

  I wanted to ask so many questions, but I knew better than to make a sound.

  They all spoke at once in perfect unison, “Hazel Hampton, you have been charged with murder and practicing sorcery.”

  What? No!

  My throat dried, and all I could do was shake my head.

  “Because of your family’s station, you will be granted the great honor of confessing your guilt to the eight great magicians. Please ready yourself for this honor.” Gaunt faces leaned over me and the bed, flashes of yellow teeth showing as they spoke the words. As one, they turned, heading toward the door. They formed two lines until their lines merged as one and they funneled out the doorway.

  A sob escaped my lips, but no words would come to me.

  The maid sitting by my bedside set her lace in her lap and placed something on the bed beside me. It was folded material, coarse as burlap.

  She turned back to her hook, gathering the lace from her lap.

  “Did my father survive?” I screamed the words. “Is Judith alive?”

  The old woman’s blue eyes met mine. “No, girl, they’re dead.” She turned back to her lace just as the door shut behind the monks.

  I screamed. I screamed and I wailed, gripping at the pillows before throwing them across the room. I screamed until my voice grew hoarse.

  Strong, thick fingers wrapped around my shoulders and gripped them tightly. “Stop it!” A woman’s voice ordered. The hands squeezed, and she shook me.

  I looked up into the old woman’s face as she stared down.

  From her voice, I thought I would find fury there, but instead the expression brimming from her eyes was much closer to concern. “Stop it,” she whispered. She was close enough that I could clearly see the veins in the whites of her eyes.

  Hazily, her face came in and out of focus as I rocked back and forth in her grip.

  “You need to get dressed, Hazel girl,” she whispered. “Now.”

  My energy fled me, and I slumped forward. I shook my head.

  She grabbed my chin, pinching it hard enough to bruise. “Stop this right now,” she hissed into my face.

  My mind made no coherent thoughts; it had exploded into a thousand tiny pieces. I could barely bring her into focus—and I didn’t want to. I wanted to perish in that moment. I wanted to explode into dust myself. I’m not sure where the words came from, but I heard myself saying, “There’s no point in getting dressed.”

  “You are getting a chance here that almost no one is allowed; you get to plead guilty before the magicians themselves.”

  “I’m not guilty—and I could care less what they think,” I whispered hoarsely.

  She didn’t let up on my chin but leaned in even closer so that her face took up my entire frame of vision. “After what they saw in those tunnels, they will not believe you. No one can make sense of what they saw down there. Too many people saw the scene in the tunnels and the state of your uncle’s corpse.”

  “It wasn’t me that killed him . . . I don’t know how to describe what happened there, but there was no one else in there—”

  “Shh!” She pressed a finger to her lips. “You were found just at the entrance to the tunnels three days after your father was found dead.”

  I tried to shake my head, but the grip she had on my chin made it impossible. “Three days—I was out the same night—I remember.”

  “You just appeared there. People had searched the spot again and again, and then you appeared. They will not believe anything but a confession. People are whispering sorcery; the Congregation needs to convict you of something.”

  “I don’t care,” I whispered, meaning it. “What could I possibly lose now?”

  “Does death not scare you?”

  “Weire is welcome to take me.”

  “Well, there are worse fates than death, girl, and the Congregation is itching to deliver them to you. They would love to convict you of sorcery and use you as an example for anni to come.”

  “I won’t let them take me alive,” I said, harshly.

  “Do you have the power to stop them? Can you do to them what was done to your uncle?” She looked at me as if it was possible—as if perhaps I had sorcery within me.

  For just a second, I contemplated the idea. I closed my eyes and tried to bring myself back to that strange feeling when I had laid on the stone and somehow turned invisible.

  I opened my eyes as she released my chin. “You’re right. Whatever happened down there, it wasn’t you who did it. Save your fire for another fight—a fight you can win. I’ll get you out of this—but only if you’re smart enough to listen to me.”

  “Why should I trust you? You don’t seem like you want to help me.”

  “I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t really enjoy helping people; it usually only leads to a lot more trouble. They—” She nodded to the closed door. “—found me on the grounds. I was staying here for a reason. The Congregation put me in here because, when they started to suspect you might wake up with powers—powers you shouldn’t have, they hoped I would kill you.” She leaned in even further. “That’s why they think I’m here, and that’s why I’ll be taken with you.”

  “You kill people?”

  “Not often.”

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Probably not. Two reasons: I have no love of killing, and your father gave something to me before his death. That’s why I was here in the first—”

  “What did he give you?”

  “None of your business, girl. And you’d do better to forget about it. But there’s a debt owed, and I’m thinking I may just repay it. I know something of the Congregation, what they want and how they work. If you are as wise as your father bragged you were, you’ll listen to me and escape with your life.”

  “What life will I have?” I whispered as my hands gripped into fists around the bed sheets.

  She pinned me with her gaze. “That’s not my business—and that’s not something you should be thinking about. Right now, it’s unlikely you’ll have one at all.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “If you are to survive, child, you need to confess to killing your uncle—”

  “Confess to killing him? It’s a lie. I didn’t do it.” I could never confess to killing anyone. It was unfathomable. “If I lied to the magicians in the Ivory Templum—that’s heresy—that would be a crime punishable by death.”

  “Better heresy than sorcery.”

  “But murder? The monks called it murder.”

  “They are calling it murder. You need to do more than just confess, child. You must never admit to anyone that the story is a lie—not to your husband when you marry, children when you have them, or closest confidant—not even to me. Whatever truly happened in those tunnels is a story you must take to your grave.”

  A booming knock came at the door.

  I jumped, the material slipping from my fingers.

  Three more knocks followed.

  “Our time is up. Do as I told you, girl. Confess.”

  Chapter Seven: Trial before the Magicians

  The entire world could have been made of bone and ivory. The color had almost entirely consumed my vision. Monks made two pallid walls around me as they marched me forward. Only the narrow pathway of dirty cobblestone road broke the color. Above the monks, the two spires of the Templum of Nirsha grew ever closer.

  We had indeed been in a room in my manor, tucked far in the guest wing. The old woman had quickly helped me undress and dress in the coarse garment I now wore, before I’d been led out to the waiting monks. They surrounded me and immediately marched out of the manor.

  We’d been marching for nearly an hour.

  They gave me no shoes, and the cuts on my feet that had partially healed since the ball reopened.

  I knew the old woman was still at a pace with us. She had no problem keeping up with the monks’ long strides, though I had to almost run.

  My feet should have numbed by
now, but the uneven cobbles sent increasing twinges into my injured ankle with every step. I did not dare slow. Blood slicked between my toes, making the steps even more treacherous. The rough, matte-white dress I wore scratched at my knees every time I stepped forward. It scratched under my armpits and at my neck.

  Yet, somehow, all of it seemed unimportant. I found myself considering sitting on the cobbles and letting them drag me up the final stretch. Drag me they would—I was sure of it.

  I didn’t. I kept going.

  If I was a sorceress, if I truly had the power to blow it all away, in that moment, I would have. I would have blown away the entire world.

  When the steps before the templum finally stretched before me, they too were the color of bone. As usual, a large crowd gathered on the stairway, but unlike usual, they made no move to enter the templum. They all faced out, watching as we approached.

  I thought that they would throw insults, but as we drew near, a woman called out from the crowd, “Free Lady Hazel!”

  There was a low hushing sound, and the crowd drew away.

  “She’s innocent! She’s good!” another called before there was another hush.

  The words were almost devastating; they weren’t for me, truly. My father was popular with the local people. Unlike so many other lords, he funded programs to provide free food and healthcare once a week to our tenants and often others. This small yet significant act of defiance was not for me—yes, I helped distribute food once in a while, but this was truly for my father’s lifetime of caring when so few did.

  A tear rolled down my cheek, but I held up my chin for the crowd as much as my spirits. If this was the last they saw of me, I would show them someone who would make my father proud. Three steps up, I glanced down to see I was leaving a trail of blood on the pristine stone. The crowd would see that, too, as soon as we passed.