by Deva Fagan
“I haven’t done anything!” I shouted, thrashing against her grip.
“You’ll pay for the evils you’ve caused us, missy!” Porter loomed over me, more terrifying in that moment than Grandmother had ever been. The rage in her eyes froze my limbs.
She was going to kill me. I held out my handful of mudrushes, stammering the words, the only slim hope I had of breaking away. Then that horrible angry face was gone, slathered in a glob of dark mud. Porter gargled. Her grip on me loosened. I tore myself free, staggering back.
I looked for the gate, but lights flared on all sides, dazzling me. Angry faces shone out from the darkness.
“It’s a bog-witch!” shouted someone.
“Stop her!” came another cry.
I ran. A dark, unforgiving shape rose up in my path. Fingers dug into my flesh. I shrieked every curse I could think of, but it was all just words. Something cold and heavy clamped around my wrists. They had shackled me.
“You fools! You’ll regret this! I’ll—I’ll—” I opened my mouth, but I had no more words, and no more mudrushes. What would they do to me now? And where was Barnaby?
I stared at the iron bars of my prison, trying to rally my spirits. Mistress Porter had informed me that I would stand trial upon the morrow, then suggested rather loudly that they’d better start gathering wood for a bonfire. Wonderful. At least I had almost a whole night to get out of this mess.
Of course, that also meant I had a whole night to worry about Barnaby. Had he recovered the chalice? Or was he lying out in the swamp even now, hurt or…
I wished the cell were larger. I couldn’t think huddled up in a corner. I needed to pace. Surely then I could think of some charm that would bend iron or break stone and get me out of here. Or perhaps I could turn myself into a crow, as Grandmother did, and escape between the bars of my narrow window.
Oh, what was the use? Here I was with an entire village terrified of me, convinced I was a real bog-witch. Wouldn’t Grandmother be pleased? Except that if I were a real bog-witch I’d have escaped already, and cursed the fools with the doom of a hundred misfortunes. I wouldn’t have used up all my supplies doing good deeds just because of some boy.
But that wasn’t the only reason I’d done them. I remembered the girl who’d given me the pumpkin tart. I had done the right thing, I had chosen my path, and now I was stuck on it. Had I changed? I stared down at my hands, at the bog mud under my nails. I folded them against my chest, hugging myself. I was still me. I was still Prunella Bogthistle.
The outer door creaked. “Barnaby?” I leaned eagerly against the bars, then sagged in disappointment.
“Hello?” A boy of about my own age had entered the building. One hand was wrapped around the collar of a large bloodhound. The other held a tray. I could see the steam rising from it. The boy’s cloud of dark hair haloed his face; I couldn’t make out his features in the darkness.
The dog padded forward, with the boy following, never dropping his hand from her collar. As he neared the bars, I realized his eyes were looking not at me but off into some middle space. He lifted his hand and felt along the bars until he came to the door. He lowered his tray to the ground, then slid the hand through the gap beneath the door.
The bloodhound looked at me, her face a mass of mournful wrinkles. “Are you going to eat it?” asked the boy.
My stomach growled, so I pulled the tray toward me. It held a wedge of cornbread, some stewed greens, and a bowl of beans. The boy crossed his legs, taking a seat on the floor beyond the bars. The bloodhound sat beside him.
I bit into the cornbread. It was delicious—sweet and buttery. “Do you normally feed your enemies this well?” I asked.
“There’s this, too.” He fumbled in his pocket and drew out a slightly squashed packet, which he pushed through the bars to me. It held a cranberry turnover. “Sorry if it’s smashed. I had to stuff it away so my aunt wouldn’t see.”
“Your aunt?”
“Helen Porter. I’m Halbert. And this is Cricket.” He patted the dog.
“Your aunt’s the one I drenched with mud?” I put down the cornbread.
Halbert set his hand on Cricket’s neck, smoothing the dog’s brown-and-black fur. “I live with her. Sometimes I want to drench her in mud. But that’s not a good reason to burn someone.”
“What if that someone is a wicked bog-witch trying to destroy the Uplands?”
“Is that what you are?”
Although I knew it was impossible, I felt as if the boy were looking right into me at that moment. “No,” I said. “I mean, I am a bog-witch. But I’m not trying to hurt anyone.”
“I could tell you weren’t the one,” said Halbert. “When I heard you shouting.”
“What do you mean, ‘the one’?”
Cricket craned her neck so Halbert could reach a particularly itchy spot. He concentrated all his attention on the dog for a long moment. “You aren’t the bog-witch who cursed me to be this way.” He gestured toward his eyes. Cricket laid her wrinkled head on his knee. He stroked her long ears absently.
I had already reduced my cornbread to a pile of crumbs. Now I pulled my hands away before I did the same to the turnover and ended up with blood-red fingers. “A bog-witch made you…blind?”
“It was about three months ago. I’d drawn a picture of her,” Halbert said. “I was on one of the walkways, looking out into the swamp. I saw her out in a coracle, gathering water lilies. I thought she looked interesting. My father told me I should practice drawing all sorts of things, ugly things, broken things. Not just flowers and fruit and pretty girls. He’s a painter, in Orlanna. I was going to go and apprentice with him when I turned thirteen.”
“Oh.” I chewed my lip. “So I guess she didn’t like you drawing her?”
“When she noticed, she practically flew across the water at me. She said how dare I take her likeness and all sorts of horrible things. I tried to say I was sorry, but she didn’t listen.”
“And you went blind, just like that?”
“After she yelled, she touched my face. Here.” Halbert tapped his temple. “I was in a fever by the time I got home. It lasted three days, Aunt Helen said. When it was gone, all I could see was a bit of light and dark. I can still tell when it’s noon. That’s it.”
“Do you know her name?” I asked. “The bog-witch?” My voice shook.
“She didn’t say.”
“Do you still…” The words wouldn’t come out. I didn’t want to look at the drawing. I didn’t want to see my grandmother’s face and know it was she who had done this. “An image of someone has a powerful magic,” I began. “Another wizard could use it…” My words fell away, hushed by the heavy weight on my heart.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally. “There’s no excuse.”
After a moment, I plucked the cranberry pastry up, holding it back through the bars. “Here. I can’t…I don’t care for cranberries much. You have it.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded at first, forgetting. “Yes. Go on. And head back home, before you get in trouble with your auntie. I don’t need her any more angry with me than she already is.”
“I tried to tell her it wasn’t right,” the boy said.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Thanks for the dinner.”
Then he left, padding away with one hand on Cricket’s neck. I waited until the door closed behind them. Then I did cry, curse me. Because, for the first time, I didn’t want to be a bog-witch. And if I wasn’t, what else could I be?
I drew myself upright to confront the host of unfriendly faces glaring at me from every corner of the large saloon. They sat propped on stools and up on the bar, they jammed themselves into the balconied upper level to peer down at me. Every person in Nagog seemed to have crammed into the building.
They had put me near the crackling hearth. I wondered if they had chosen the spot so as to pitch me more easily onto the coals after whatever excuse for an inquisition they managed to put forth.
; I would not sniffle. I would not tremble. I would not let them see how terrified I was. I heaved my hands against the weight of the manacles, trying to smooth back my flyaway hair. The first two rows of townspeople jostled back at the motion. It made me feel a little better.
I glanced toward the formidable oaken chair across the floor. The man who sat in it was small, with roving black eyes and the teeth of a rat. Seeing the curl of his lip, I didn’t hold much hope that the mayor would be any more forgiving than his people. Mistress Porter had not left my side. Even now she thumped a large staff ominously against the floor, looking as if she wished I were under it.
The hum of conversation dimmed as the mayor stood and raised his hands. “People of Nagog, grave danger has come to our fair village, and we are here to decide how we will deal with it. You see here before you a creature most foul, an evil spawned in the depths of the Bottomlands, that fearsome land of untrammeled magic that birthed the doom of the Uplands so long ago.”
The mayor motioned to Mistress Porter. She gave a particularly energetic thump of her staff. “Abel and I found this bog-witch at the town gates last night. She’d used her unspeakable magics to unlock and unbar them, and summoned forth her foul jacks to menace our town. When we confronted her, she revealed her true evil and cast her dark magics on me.”
A rumble passed through the crowd. The mayor nodded. My heart squeezed to a lump of coal. I was doomed.
But I wasn’t going to go meekly. “Yes, I am a bog-witch,” I began. “And that walking hatchet is lucky all she got was a mud-dousing. I didn’t summon the jacks! They work for Blackthorn. I was only…” I couldn’t very well tell them I had wanted to plant the Mirable Chalice on their doorstep. “Oh, you’d never believe me anyway, you ignorant id— Oof!”
Mistress Porter jerked on the chain that ran from my manacles, making me stagger to one side, closer to the fire. “None of your curses, witch! We know your kind!”
“You can’t even tell the difference between an insult and a curse,” I spat. Shouts and cries broke out all around, not the least of which were Porter’s bellows.
“What about the wards?” someone cried.
“Did she destroy them?”
“Will the frights take us all?”
The mayor’s voice silenced them. “My friends. I think you will all agree that, of any of us, Mistress Porter knows best the evils of the bog-witches.”
Porter spat near my feet. “To my lifelong sorrow.”
The mayor went on. “The girl has admitted she is one of the Bottomlander hags, and we have the testimony of several upstanding citizens that she was doing evil to our village. We must take swift action. With the Night of a Thousand Frights upon us and our wards gone, we must ensure the safety of the village.”
“This town and everything in it are just so much ghoul feed,” I muttered. “And you’d rather sit around calling me names. You ought to be running. Or preparing to fight.”
“You see?” Porter said. “She calls for our deaths!”
The mayor tapped his fingers against the solid oak of his chair. “Mistress Porter, it is in your charge to maintain the gates and organize our town watch. What do you suggest?”
Porter fixed me with a cold glare. “I say we use her. Burn her at the gates. Tonight, at dusk. That ought to drive off the darkest demons of the swamp.”
“Yes, burn her!” called other voices from the crowd, taking up a chant.
The mayor nodded. “So be it.”
The shouts continued. I wondered if their fervor might drive them to the deed then and there. Maybe it would be better to get it over with. I tried to stand upright, to throw my shoulders back, but my whole body trembled. The heat of the nearby hearth seemed to burn my skin, and the whiff of smoke made me gag. I looked up, but the high windows above the balconies were blocked by the rafters. If there had been a crow circling above, I couldn’t have seen it. And why should I expect Grandmother to care in any case?
But Barnaby, him I had expected. He must have wondered where I was by now. Had the jacks gotten him? What if he was lying battered and bleeding in mire? What if…
What if he was striding into the saloon that moment?
His purple coat gleamed, his smile sparkled, his face glowed with goodwill and enthusiasm. “Greetings, people of Nagog!” He spun around in a slow circle, waving a jaunty greeting to each corner of the room, and contriving to set his long coat swirling rather dramatically. “My name is Barnaby. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
The chanting faltered, then fell away to a silence broken only by one last thump of Porter’s staff.
“Weren’t them mummers who passed through last week telling tales of a hero named Barnaby going around and fixing the curse of the lost chalice?” said one man.
“Not just fixing the curse,” said a young woman, staring at Barnaby. “He’s on a quest to find the Mirable Chalice!”
“Yes,” Barnaby said grandly, “I have set forth on such a quest. But that’s not what has brought me to your fair village. I see you’ve been having some trouble with this bog-witch?”
All eyes turned to me. I realized I was still standing slack-jawed, and snapped my lips together. Barnaby gave me the barest of winks. It was not reassuring.
“It is true that this girl was once a bog-witch, spawned in the depths of the Bottomlands,” he said. “But she is not the danger you think she is. She has been traveling with me these past weeks, and has renounced her evil ways. With my guidance, she has taken up a new calling, and is seeking to help avert the curse upon the Uplands.”
Everyone stared at Barnaby, including me.
“She cursed me! She’s still a bog-witch,” sputtered Porter. “She ought to pay for what she and her kind have done!”
“And she will,” Barnaby replied, dipping his hat to Mistress Porter. “It was the knowledge of the crimes of her kinfolk that first drove her to repent, and it is to atone for these evils that she now seeks to do good works. She has much knowledge of magics; with her aid, the village of Nagog can be protected from the frights that tonight will bring. Free her now, and allow her to prove that she has cast aside her wicked ways.”
As he finished this extraordinary speech, Barnaby looked to me, brows lifting in unspoken query. I pursed my lips. The village of Nagog had not done much to inspire me to help them. Then I remembered Halbert. Not to mention the bonfire waiting for me outside. I gave a brief nod.
Barnaby turned to the mayor. “Master Mayor, you have the chance here to ensure the safety of all your village. I can see you are a clear-sighted man. Please consider this opportunity, and have mercy on the bog-wi—the girl, I mean.”
The mayor drummed his fingers again. “Well. Hmm. We aren’t without mercy here in Nagog. If she really is trying to atone and is willing to swear as much…”
“Of course, Master Mayor. If you’d allow me to talk with Prunella privately, I’m sure that can be arranged.”
The mayor sucked on his teeth for a moment, then nodded. Mistress Porter grumbled but yielded to a look from the mayor. She yanked me, none too gently, away from the hearth and into an alcove along the side. Barnaby followed. Porter shoved the chains into Barnaby’s hands with a dour look, then stalked away to take up a position between us and the door.
“You came back,” I said.
Barnaby glanced around. He spoke in a low voice. “Of course I came back. I’d have been back last night, but that battle-ax with the staff was on patrol.”
Despite the manacles on my wrists and the mob calling for my blood, I felt happier than I had all day. “I thought the jacks had killed you.”
“Hmph. No spindly old pumpkinhead is doing me in, I promise you that. What a humiliating way to go.” He cleared his throat. “But blast it, Prunella, they got the chalice.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But we’ll get it back. If we survive tonight, that is.”
“So you will help them? Even after all this?”
“Someone’s got to show them what bog
-witches are really like,” I said. “Even if they did make me sleep on a slab lumpier than my aunt Flywell’s nose.”
“If it makes you feel better, I spent the night tumbled down in a swampwiggen nest. Ended up with bites all over my…Well, I didn’t sleep much.”
“Maybe a little better.” My lips twitched, but it wouldn’t do for the contrite bog-witch to start giggling. “And now I suppose I’d better swear I’ve seen the error of my ways before Porter gets carried away and tosses me into the fireplace.”
Chapter 7
Of course, most of the populace of Nagog still hated me even after I swore on my grandmother’s soul I would help them survive the Night of a Thousand Frights. But with a horde of dark and nasty creatures descending upon us at dusk, I suppose I was the lesser evil. They agreed to give me a chance.
“They don’t hate you,” said Barnaby. “They’re just scared. And you have to admit that you…well…you’re not…”
“Kind and courteous?”
“I was going to say ‘your average village girl.’”
“Curse me if I was,” I said. “They’d be completely sunk in the mire then. At least with me they’ve got someone to toss them a rope.” I handed Barnaby a bundle of rags.
“Do you think it’ll work?” he asked. He eyed the red-stained bits of cloth dubiously. “Cranberry juice?”
“Of course. I think the seeming spell turned out rather well, considering we’re in the Uplands. And ghouls aren’t particularly clever. By the time one of them gets close enough to tell this isn’t blood, it’ll be trapped. If you do your job.”
“If there’s one thing I know, it’s traps,” said Barnaby. “All right. I’ll take them out there now. You think you can avoid getting burned or locked up while I’m gone?”