by Deva Fagan
“To get that grimoire.”
My face grew hot. “Yes, well, it’s better than me turning you into a frog, isn’t it? Anyway, you knew it wasn’t there. You’re the one who stole the blasted thing, though I don’t know how. You must have snitched it right out from under the queen’s nose.”
Barnaby held his chin a bit higher. A flash of sunlight caught his hazel eyes. “It wasn’t that hard.”
My breath lodged somewhere in my throat. “You must be the best thief in all the Uplands.”
“Well, the queen didn’t have any soul-eating crow charms. Just a couple flipping good locks and a passel of enchanted suits of armor. Too slow for me.” His smile dropped away, his glib mood passing as quickly as the glow of the sun. “I don’t want to be a thief, though, not anymore. Sweet hills, I wish I’d never heard of the Mirable Chalice.” He strode ahead, slashing his hand through the grasses that dared nod their heads out over the road.
“Are you angry?” I asked, hurrying to keep up. “I won’t call you a thief again if you don’t like it.”
He didn’t look at me, but he slowed his furious pace slightly. “Trouble is, I am a thief. My whole family are thieves.” Barnaby produced a silver coin from somewhere about his person. He flipped it back and forth as we continued on.
“He called you Barnaby Bagby,” I prompted.
“My da was the first Bagby to take up thieving.” Barnaby looked ahead as he spoke, staring at the dark blur of distant trees. “Not because he was a bad sort. He was just hungry, and he had five sons and a wife who were hungry, too. People say Serafine’s a good queen, but she wasn’t good to us. Or maybe she just didn’t know what was going on. Taxes so heavy a fellow had to work day and night to pay ’em. Who’s to blame a man for stealing a bag of rice here, or a few copper pennies there, if his family’s starving?”
I shook my head. Barnaby forced a sort of strained lightness into his voice, but the rawness underneath trammeled my own heart.
“They caught my da creeping out of the Royal Gardens with a goose. A lousy stinking goose. He begged for mercy, told them it was just to feed his family. And what did he get? Did the fair and lovely Serafine have mercy? She dines on gold and has a gown for every day of the year, so what’s one goose to her?”
I had no words. I just walked onward, trying not to flinch at the tautness of Barnaby’s shoulders.
“She had him branded for it. ‘T,’ for ‘thief,’ right on his cheek. It festered. He died raving in a fever not long after.”
We walked in silence for a ways before Barnaby went on. “Mam tried to keep things together for a while, but she wasn’t strong. Her body, I mean. She had a fine, fiery spirit. Sort of like…Well, anyway, she died, too, and then it was just me and my brothers. I’m the youngest, so they watched after me. It was around then my brother Booth took to thieving.
“Not for geese, though. No. I remember him coming home one morning, before sunup, and tossing gold coins over the rest of us, like a shower of sunshine you could catch in your hand. Wasn’t long before the rest of us were at it, too.”
Barnaby glanced sideways at me. “You probably don’t know what it’s like to have folks sneer at you and point. To walk along a street and feel like the lowest grub squashed under someone’s fine boot heel. I mean, if they did, you wouldn’t care.”
He scuffed his boot against the road, kicking aside a clod of dirt. “But I did. So, when those gold coins turned into sausages and cheese and velvet jackets and silk shirts, it was like…magic, I guess. It was like one of those charms from the stories that turn the frog into a prince. We were suddenly princes. I’d walk down the street and girls would smile at me behind their frilly fans. I’d go into a tea shop and folks would bow and give me the best table.”
“So what changed?” I asked, after he’d been silent several long minutes. “It doesn’t sound like a bad life.”
“What changed was a locket,” he said. “I didn’t really need it—Booth had us running bigger schemes than bitty pickpocketing by then. But…do you ever do things just because you can? Eat a slice of pie because it’s there in front of you? Tell a lie because you know you can get away with it?”
I shrugged, but he wasn’t looking at me in any case. “Anyway, the girl I nicked it from started bawling soon as she realized it was gone, raving about her dead mam. Some other folks had to carry her into the tea shop. I should have just gone on my way, sold the blasted thing, and been done with it. She was rich enough to buy another. We never took from poor folks. Even Booth stuck to that.”
I wrapped one of my braids around my finger, feeling for bits of my home that were no longer there. “So what did you do?”
“What do you think? I gave it back. Said I’d found it lying in the street.” He quickened his pace, as if trying to escape the memory. “She kissed me. Gave me a ruby ring right off her finger. Spouted some long story about the locket being a keepsake from her mam…She was so happy, and I just wanted to sink into the pits.”
“So you stopped?”
“Booth and the others thought I’d gone soft. Said I’d lost my nerve. Didn’t have the guts. I figured I’d show them.”
“You went after the queen’s treasury,” I said.
Barnaby nodded. “Let Serafine bawl over a blasted goblet. I couldn’t give a flipping frog, after what she did to my da. And she’s got plenty of other trinkets to console her, I can tell you that.”
“What did your brothers say when you brought back the Mirable Chalice?”
“I never went back. I didn’t have the chalice a day before I was cursing myself for taking it.”
“Why? It is stinking heavy…”
Barnaby snorted. “No. That’s when Rencevin caught up with me the first time. He’d been sniffing after us Bagbys for a while, but when the chalice went missing he really put his nose to the ground. I only got away because he hates the Bottomlands more than I do and didn’t follow me in. I’ll die before I let anyone brand me.”
“Why didn’t you just say you found the chalice on the street?” I asked.
“That might work with a locket, but it wouldn’t fool Rencevin.”
“Then just leave it somewhere. Let some scullery maid find it and get the reward.”
He tightened his jaw and said nothing.
I sucked in a breath. “You want it. Even after all that. You want the queen’s reward. Fame and fortune.”
“I told you that when we first met,” he retorted. “If I’m the champion of the chalice, none of us Bagbys will ever have to steal again.”
“That’s why you were in our garden,” I said, suddenly understanding. “You were going to say we’d stolen it. We were going to be your scapegoats!”
“It would’ve made a good story, too,” he said. “But then you had to go and save my life and follow me around. And you wanted that blasted grimoire so badly. Anyway, stealing the chalice back from Lord Blackthorn was just as good—even Rencevin couldn’t naysay a tale like that.”
“What about the curse?” I said. “Pogboggen and the hair charm and all those people wasting away.” I fingered the star-shaped buttons of my jacket, remembering Mary Morland’s hungry eyes.
“D’you think I’m heartless? ’Course I want to help them. It’s my fault they’re in this mess. There’ve been days I nearly walked right into one of these pokey towns and left the chalice on the mayor’s doorstep.”
“And…?”
“I tried not to think about it. I tried just to pretend I was some grand hero. But it’s not true. Folks shouldn’t be cheering me. They should be throwing me in irons and tossing me into the pits.”
“Now, that’s ridiculous,” I said. “Everyone knows thieves get their hands chopped off.”
“It’s not a joke, Prunella,” said Barnaby fiercely. “This has gone on long enough. I know what I’ve got to do.”
“You’re going to turn yourself in?” I hastened to keep up with his long strides. “After I went to all that trouble saving you from Rencevin?”
“No. But I’m going to turn over the blasted chalice. It was all a lie anyway. I wasn’t meant to be a hero. Time to stop pretending.”
Chapter 6
I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, savoring the rich green scent of the swamp. So close to the Night of a Thousand Frights, the air was thick with magic, spicier than the hottest hot-leaf, wild and free. Each breath filled me with vigor and yearning. My grandmother and aunts and second cousins once removed would be busy collecting wood, piling up the bonfire. Ezzie and the other cousins would be hunting fireflies, gathering brilliant clouds to ward against the terror and the power of the coming night. The ache of not being there throbbed through me.
“Hurry up, Prunella!”
I opened my eyes to see the last sliver of the sun across the swamp. Barnaby himself had nearly vanished behind a clump of waygrass. He waited for me at the bend in the boardwalk, where the gray walkway curved out into the wetlands. His eyes flickered restlessly over the sea of grasses surrounding us.
“The village is right up there,” I said. “And we haven’t seen a sign of that thief-taker for miles. No need to be jumping around like a marsh rabbit.”
“Any marsh rabbit worth his ears would be snug in a burrow by now,” Barnaby said as we continued. “Considering what’s coming tomorrow.”
“Pff! If it’s the Thousandfold Night that has you all knotted up, stop worrying. I’ll keep us safe.” I waved my hand airily.
It wasn’t all bravado. On the Night of a Thousand Frights, the boundary between Uplands and Bottomlands meant little. In the past hour alone, I’d found a handful of rushes that sparkled when I looked at them sideways. Of course, all I knew how to do with mudrushes was to summon globs of mud. Useful for driving off an annoying younger cousin, but probably not much else. Never mind, I told myself. A few foraging trips and I would be fully restocked.
Barnaby remained silent. Despite what he said, I knew what was really bothering him. I could tell by the way he bent under his pack as if it were full of boulders, the way he stared at his boots and crumpled his fine purple cap in one hand.
“Listen, Barnaby, maybe there’s another way to deal with the curse,” I began.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes, staring off over the swamp instead.
“It said something in that book, the one I burned, about knowledge to break the—”
His eyes widened. “What’s that?”
I turned, following the line of Barnaby’s finger. Something glittered through the swishing grasses.
“The sun on the swamp?” I offered. “Fireflies? Fox fire? Someone out for a last bit of eel-fishing?” I squinted, trying to catch the flicker of reddish light.
“It looks like eyes.” Barnaby smothered a yelp. “Flaming eyes.”
My stomach squeezed into a knot. It did look like eyes. And a leering mouth. The grasses quivered. Was that a branch? Or a sticklike hand?
“Jacks!” hissed Barnaby. “Run!”
Our footfalls clattered along the boardwalk. I gulped the air. It burned in my chest. I didn’t look back. Ahead, the gray walls of Nagog loomed up from the marshland.
The boardwalk ended. I stared in dismay at the village palisades, edged with a thicket of sharpened sticks. I pounded my fists against the gates. They did not move.
“We’ve got to get inside,” panted Barnaby. He peered along the wall. “Filthy fens! The whole place is walled in.”
I threw myself at the gate, but it merely quivered. Barnaby stopped me before I could batter myself again. “Wait.” He jumped up lightly, catching hold of a crack between the logs that formed the walls. A moment later, he was pulling himself over the wall and picking his way through the hedge of sharp sticks. Then he was gone. I heard the distant thump of his feet on the far side.
“Hold on,” he called. “It’s locked and barred. They sure didn’t want anything getting in.” Wood creaked. Was it behind me?
I tightened my grip on the mudrushes, a desperate laugh catching in my throat. I doubted that globs of mud would halt jacks. But I had to do something, anything, to fight back. I hadn’t come this far to end up rent to bits by knobbly wooden fingers. I whirled around to face the swamp.
A slight breeze stirred the dark grasses. The only glimmers were stars sparkling in the eastern sky.
With a click of metal and a grinding of wood, the gates shuddered open. Barnaby bounded out. “Come on! Inside!”
“Barnaby,” I said, “look.”
He turned, his dagger raised against the darkness. Slowly, he lowered it. “They’re gone. Or they weren’t jacks after all.”
I frowned, peering more closely at the gates of Nagog. “Lucky for us either way. These gates wouldn’t have stopped real jacks for long.”
“No wards?”
“Not anymore. Look here, you can see the carvings. They were very good, once.” I frowned at the swirling marks running along the fat logs that held up the gate. “But it’s just like the charm on the well in Sweetwater. The magic’s all faded away.”
“So they’re defenseless.”
I fiddled with the ends of my mudrushes. “Maybe they were sensible and they’ve already gone away somewhere safe. It’s as dead as a tomb in here.” I squinted along the empty street. The wide main road was edged with storefronts, but all were shuttered and dark. “We might need to find another village to ditch the chalice in.”
“No. I smell smoke.”
I sniffed, catching a whiff of cookfires. Straining my ears, I could just make out the murmur of conversation inside one of the buildings. Barnaby drew the Mirable Chalice out of his pack. He stared at it for a long moment, turning it to catch the faint starlight. Then he stalked over to the doorstep of the building where we had heard voices and set it down with a clink.
We retreated behind a shadowy stack of eel traps piled across the way. Barnaby lobbed a palm-sized stone at the door. Thunk.
Several moments passed, but the door remained shut and the murmurs continued.
“Come on,” said Barnaby, hefting another rock. “Stop chitchatting and come take the blasted chalice. You’ll be the hero of the Uplands.”
“No worries,” I said, directing Barnaby’s attention to the gate. “Here comes someone else. Maybe they’ll see— Oh no.”
The three tall, thin figures advancing from the gloom outside were not villagers. They were not even human. Their bulging heads were too large, their narrow bodies too sticklike.
“Jacks,” said Barnaby. He pulled out his dagger. We both pressed ourselves deeper into the shadows.
It didn’t matter. The jacks ignored us entirely.
“Where are they going?” Barnaby whispered. “What are they— No!”
With a yell of fury, Barnaby jumped from behind the eel traps. He was as quick as a cat, but the jacks were faster. By the time I joined Barnaby in the street, one of the jacks had seized the Mirable Chalice.
“Give that back!” cried Barnaby.
Another jack turned its misshapen face toward us. The flames in its eye sockets flared, snapping red and gold. A crackling, papery voice hissed out: It is his. It has always been his. Do not stand in his way.
“Who?” I demanded.
Those who work against him will only find misery and woe. Beware the wrath of Lord Blackthorn.
“I’ll show you misery and woe!” Barnaby ran at the jack holding the chalice, only to be tackled by the one that had spoken. It laced spindly fingers round his neck.
“Let him go!” I shouted. I threw myself at the jack that had Barnaby and latched both hands around its head, my nails sinking into the spongy pumpkin-flesh. Barnaby’s strangled gasps hammered my ears. I yanked with all my strength.
Pop!
I fell. The pumpkin head rolled to the ground with a hollow thud. Barnaby pulled free at last. I scrambled to my feet, backing away from the jack as it careened from side to side, searching for its head.
“The chalice,” croaked Barnaby. The jack with the chalice was stalking out the gat
e even now, leaving the third to guard its retreat.
“Go!” I shouted. “Get the chalice!” I brandished my mudrushes at the guard, driving it back for a moment.
Taking this opening, Barnaby sprinted through the gate and off into the gloom beyond. I continued to wave my mudrushes menacingly, hoping the jack would be stupid enough to believe I could harm it. If I could just give Barnaby enough time, he might have a chance of getting the chalice back. But against two jacks or, worse, three…
A scrabbling sound down the street drew my attention. Esmeralda preserve me. The decapitated jack had located its missing head! Even now it set the gourd back on its spindly neck. The flaring eyes swiveled around to regard me with empty malice.
I held my ground, beginning the mud-splatter incantation. At least I’d go out fighting. With any luck, I’d blind them for a little while.
Before I could finish, they were gone, whisking right past me and out the gate. “Blast it all!” I spun around, preparing to chase after them.
The door to one of the buildings crashed open. Light streamed from within as several figures jostled out into the street, blocking my way to the gate.
Idiot villagers. Why couldn’t they have come out earlier, when we needed them? Now I was in the pickle pot, good and stewed.
One of the men snorted like a horse that had found a bee in its hay. “Jacks! Here, in the village? And the gates wide open! Porter, didn’t you lock up?”
“I left those gates as tight as the mayor’s purse not an hour ago.” The woman named Porter raked me up and down with her stern gaze. She was long and narrow in her wide skirts, a broomstick who looked ready to sweep me away with the rest of the trash on her streets.
“Who are you, missy?” she demanded. “What are you doing, breaking into our village on the night before the spirits walk?”
I could feel my otherness; it was in the way I carried my dress, my hair, even in how I stood and the tightness of my fingers on the mudrushes. They could see it, and their fear prickled my skin.
“I—I’m a traveler,” I stammered.
Porter stared at me a long moment, her nose flaring as if she could smell the mud under my fingernails. “No, I can see what you really are, mire-spawn. A bog-witch!” She spoke the words with such loathing it shivered me to my core. “What evil will you set upon us now?” She moved so fast I had time only to yelp. Her iron-hard fingers seized my arm, twisting it sharply. I gasped in pain, and outrage.