The Witch Hunter

by Virginia Boecker

  “What are you going to tell them when there’s no wedding?”

  Fifer stops laughing, then pushes me away as if she’d forgotten who she was talking to.

  “Never you mind. Besides, if you don’t find that tablet, I’m going to have bigger problems than a fake wedding.” She turns away from me. “Where’d Schuyler go?”

  We see him standing by the lake talking to the nymphs, who are naked save for a piece of fabric tied strategically around their hips. They giggle and toss their hair at him.

  “I swear, I can’t leave him alone for a minute!” Fifer stomps off toward him. Schuyler sees her coming and breaks away.

  “Why are you talking to them?” Fifer demands.

  “What, can’t I?”

  “Why do the girls you talk to always have to be naked?”

  “They’re not always. You aren’t.”

  “Not today!”

  “Fifer, I was simply admiring their—”

  “Don’t say it!”

  “Decorations. I was going to say decorations.”

  They carry on arguing. I stand there, fidgeting and waiting for them to stop when Bram and another boy walk up. They’re both carrying cups of something giving off purple steam.

  “They’re at it again, eh?” Bram laughs. “You might be here for a while. I figured you might need a drink.” He hands me a cup.

  “Thank you.” I take a tentative sip.

  “What does it taste like?” Bram’s friend asks eagerly.

  I stop drinking immediately. “Why, what is it?”

  Bram laughs. “Relax. He just means it tastes different to everyone. It’s supposed to be the essence of who or what you want the most. Mine, for example, tastes like ginger.” I notice his eyes flick to Fifer as he says this.

  “What is it, some sort of love potion?” I peer inside the cup.

  “More like a truth potion. The fun part is figuring out the truth.” They both drink deeply. “Careful, though. It’s strong stuff and a little goes a long way.”

  I shrug. I know a thing or two about strong drinks. I’ve been drinking Joe’s ale since I was eleven. But a truth potion? I’d just as soon drink poison. Even still, I take another sip just to be polite.

  “Congratulations on your wedding,” Bram says, and the two boys walk off.

  “Thank you,” I say again, and take another sip. I have to admit, it tastes good. Spicy and tangy, almost like shandygaff, a mixture of ginger beer and lemons that Joe sometimes serves. Caleb always joked it was the most normal thing on the menu.

  Caleb. Is that what the potion is trying to tell me? That I want him more than anything? That may have been true once. I don’t feel as if it’s true now. I can’t forget how he never came back for me at Fleet, or the things he said about me at Veda’s. I can’t forget that when I needed him the most, he was nowhere to be found.

  I dump the rest of the potion in the grass.

  I settle down onto the ground to wait. I examine my ring, holding it up to the light, the sun penetrating into the deep blue stone. As I tip it back and forth in the light, I notice some sort of marking on the bottom. I take it off and turn it upside down and there, etched into the underside of the stone, is a tiny heart. I slip the ring back onto my finger. Too bad Fifer hadn’t known that was there. That would have driven Chime crazy.

  I’m back to pondering the allure of shandygaff when Fifer walks over in a huff.

  “What’s wrong?” I stand up and dust myself off.

  “He is impossible,” she fumes. “Impossible! He always says he’ll change. But he never does.” She looks at my empty cup. “What was that?”

  “Bram gave it to me. Said it was some sort of truth potion.”

  “Oh. What does it taste like?”

  “Lemons. And spice.” Fifer gives me a sharp look. “Why? Have you ever had it before?”

  “Yes.” She grimaces.

  “And?”

  “And nothing. Mine only ever tastes foul.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Speaking of foul, where’d Schuyler go? Isn’t he going to help us look around?”

  “Who knows,” she says irritably. “As if I can ever guess what he’ll do, or why. He told me I was being unreasonable.”

  “You? Unreasonable?” I fight the urge to laugh. “I can’t imagine.”

  “That’s what I said!” Fifer says. “I told him, if you think taking one girl to a party and going home with another is reasonable, you’ve got another thing coming. Then he said, why’d you go home with another boy last year? Then I said, John is not another boy. He’s like my brother, which Schuyler very well knows. Then he said…”

  As Fifer rages on, I search the crowd for Schuyler. Most of the boys here are dressed normally, but since he looks as if he just came from his own funeral, he shouldn’t be hard to spot. I do see some boys all in black standing around a fire, but on closer inspection, they’ve all got bloodred eyes, not revenants but definitely some sort of demon.…

  I’m about to give up when I spot a figure in black trudging up the hill by the nymph-filled lake, the coattail of his long black coat flapping in the wind.

  Schuyler.

  I turn to Fifer.

  “Then I said, if you want to go home with a nymph, don’t bother calling on me again. As if I care what they can do underwater—”

  “Fifer.”

  “What?”

  “There he is.” I point at the hill. We watch for a minute as Schuyler winds his way around the water, the trees to his left, the lake on his right.

  “Where does he think he’s going?” Fifer murmurs.

  I shrug. “Who knows. But we really need to start looking around. If he’s not coming with us, that’s fine, but we’ve only got a few hours, and this place is huge, and—what?”

  Fifer is shaking her head and muttering under her breath. Her face is like thunder.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just thinking about Chime again.” She rips open the flap on her bag and starts pawing through it. “Do you know what her specialty is? Love spells. Can you believe that?” She pulls two necklaces from her bag and snaps it shut. “What a waste of magic. I’ll bet anything that letter for John had a love spell on it. Well, I warned him not to mess with her. Never trust a girl with three last names.”

  I blink. “Fifer, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She reaches over and drops one of the necklaces over my head, then puts the other one on herself. She lets out a huff of relief.

  “Finally. Now we can talk.”

  “What do you mean? What is this?” I hold up the necklace. It’s long and delicate, with a series of odd-looking charms hanging from the end.

  “Do you have any idea what it’s like being involved with a revenant?” Fifer demands.

  “Uh, no.”

  “They hear everything you say, know everything you think. They know what you’re going to do before you do it. They can even manipulate your actions. They have all the power, and you have none. I think you’ll agree that’s not right, yes?”

  There are about a million reasons being involved with a revenant isn’t right without adding that to the list, but I don’t say this.

  “Right.”

  “That’s why I came up with this.” She holds up the necklace. “Brass chain. Ampoules filled with salt, quicksilver, and ash. Alone, they’re nothing, especially to a revenant with Schuyler’s power. But together, they act as a sort of shield. A barrier. With this on, he can’t hear me or feel me or penetrate my thoughts. Yours either.”

  “Okay… but why do you need this now? I mean, why not wear it all the time?”

  “I don’t wear it all the time because I don’t want him to know I have it. And I’m wearing it now because I’m going to follow him.”

  “Why?”

  We watch Schuyler trudge up the hill until he disappears into the trees.

  Fifer scowls. “Because he’s up to something. And I want to know what it is.”

>   FIFER STARTS MARCHING AROUND THE LAKE. I hurry after her.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea? Following him like this?” I stumble over a branch and nearly fall. My dress is so tight it’s hard to keep up with her.

  “Good for us, not so for him,” she says.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Fifer doesn’t reply.

  We’ve reached the other side of the water now. It’s eerily quiet here: The noise from the crowd has fallen away, muffled by the thickening trees. It’s growing darker, too, the halo of sunlight above our heads fading the farther we move into the forest.

  “You said you think he’s up to something,” I continue. “What is it?”

  It could be anything. Revenants aren’t exactly known for having wholesome pastimes. Before he started recruiting and training witch hunters, Blackwell used revenants to find witches for him. It was a disaster. Unreliable at best, terribly violent at worst, they’d kill them and dismember them and bring back body parts as trophies. Blackwell said they were like cats dumping their kill on his doorstep for approval.

  Finally, she speaks. “Stealing.”

  “Oh,” I say, somewhat relieved.

  “He promised me he’d stop. And he did for a while. But then I didn’t hear from him for months, and I found out he’d been arrested. They put him in Fleet.” She looks at me, her eyes wide. “I thought I’d never see him again. I prepared for the worst… but then he was let go. Well, he said he escaped, but I don’t know if I believe that.”

  I don’t know if I believe that, either. No one escapes Fleet. No one except me, and I had a lot of help. And Blackwell would never let a revenant go. Unless…

  “You think he was let go so he could steal something?”

  She nods.

  I think a moment. “You think Blackwell wants him to steal something?”

  She nods again.

  “Like what?”

  “Who knows. With Schuyler it could be anything. He’s stolen money; he’s stolen horses; he even stole a crate of chickens once—”

  “Except Blackwell wouldn’t have him steal chickens.”

  “No,” she replies. “And that’s what I’m afraid of.” She glances in Schuyler’s direction. Only his bright hair is visible now; the rest of him fades into the darkness of the trees around him.

  Fifer turns back to me. “I didn’t just bring Schuyler here to protect me against you. There’s another reason, too.” She takes a deep breath. “The prophecy. Remember the line that says, trust the one who sees as much as he hears? Well, I think that’s about Schuyler. And I think that whatever Blackwell wants him to steal is the same thing we’re here to find.”

  Her words come fast now, as though she’s afraid I’m going to cut her off, to tell her she’s wrong, to say I don’t believe her, the way John did.

  I don’t.

  “I wasn’t sure, at first. But then when I saw him talking to those nymphs—” Fifer breaks off. “They know things, too, you know. They’re connected to the earth the way revenants are. If there’s anything hidden around here, anything out of the ordinary, they’ll know it.”

  “Is that why you brought two necklaces?” I say. “Because you knew we’d have to follow him and you didn’t want him to know?”

  Fifer shrugs. “I always carry two necklaces. If I need to talk to someone else he’s touched, doesn’t do me much good to only have one, does it? Schuyler’s smart enough to figure out what I’m saying even from half a conversation.”

  I smile a little at the lengths she goes to, to hide things from him.

  “Anyway, even if I’m wrong about Schuyler being part of the prophecy—which I’m not—whatever Blackwell’s got him doing, whatever he wants Schuyler to steal, it can’t be good, can it?” Fifer goes silent. And when she speaks again, her voice is very quiet. “I always think of Schuyler as invincible. But I think he’s gotten in over his head this time.”

  Immediately, I wonder if Schuyler knows about Blackwell. Then I dismiss it. Revenants need touch to gain access to people’s thoughts: The more contact they have with a person, the deeper they can read into them. I doubt Blackwell would have allowed even a handshake.

  I consider telling her then that Blackwell is a wizard. But Nicholas said not to, that the truth will come out in time. And if Fifer is right about Schuyler, that time will come soon enough.

  “I think you’re right,” I say.

  If Fifer is surprised by my agreement, she doesn’t show it. We keep walking up the hill, pushing our way through the thickening trees until the path gradually narrows, then disappears. We’ve lost sight of Schuyler, and there’s nothing around us but trees now, no way to know which direction he may have gone.

  “What do you think?” Fifer asks.

  I look around. While I’m used to hunting at night, I almost always had some sort of light. If not from the moon, then a torch. The moon is just a tiny sliver, too dim and too low in the sky to be of use. I keep walking anyway. Fifer trails behind me, silent. But I don’t see anything. Just a typical forest floor, spongy with moss, brown with wet leaves and fallen branches. Unremarkable.

  I start to wonder if Fifer’s necklace doesn’t work. That Schuyler heard us and outsmarted us and purposely led us astray… then my toe hits a rock and sends it clattering into a nearby tree. I reach down and pick it up. It’s mossy, too, but green. Bright green. It looks out of place.

  It is out of place.

  Soon I see another green rock, then another. They’re getting bigger, piling up along the ground until the forest floor disappears beneath them. We pick our way over them until they end at the entrance to a small tunnel, neatly hewn into the side of the hill.

  Fifer shoots me a look. There’s a challenge behind it.

  I shrug, but I feel my heart pick up speed. I hate small, dark spaces but I’m not about to back out now. I take a breath and step inside, Fifer behind me. There’s a faint light at the end, glowing soft and green. It has a strange, shimmery quality to it, almost like water.

  We follow the tunnel to the end, where it veers sharply to the right, and peer carefully around the corner. About ten feet in front of us is an enormous stone slab, propped open like a door. I hear noises from inside. A grinding noise, like stone on stone. A shuffling, like footsteps.

  Schuyler.

  I turn to Fifer. “Stay behind me. Whatever he’s doing in there, he won’t like being surprised.” It occurs to me that while I don’t think Schuyler will hurt Fifer, he won’t have any problem hurting me.

  Fifer reaches into her bag, pulls out Humbert’s spring-loaded dagger, and hands it to me.

  “I don’t think this will help,” I say.

  “Maybe not,” she says. “But there’s no sense going in empty-handed.”

  I take it and press the button in the handle. With a tiny click, the single blade splits into three. Fifer pulls a small canvas sack from her bag and ties it around her waist.

  “Salt,” she whispers. “Just in case. It won’t stop him, either, but it’ll slow him down if we need to get away.”

  We slip through the narrow opening into a small room unlike anything I’ve ever seen. A thick carpet of moss covers the floor and the walls. Long tentacles of it hang from the ceiling, and the air smells damp and earthy, like a forest after a storm. In the center of the room is a single, moss-covered tomb. Schuyler stands in front of it, holding an enormous sword. His head whips around as we enter the room, and immediately he takes a swing.

  Fifer screams and I drop to the ground, feeling a rush of wind as the blade skims the top of my head.

  “Flamin’ hell, Elizabeth!” Schuyler lowers the sword. “I coulda killed you. And you!” He looks at Fifer. “What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here? What are you doing here?” Fifer steps over me and advances, pointing her finger at him. “Explain yourself!”

  An unmistakable look of guilt flashes across Schuyler’s face.

  “Ah. Yes. Well, it’s all a
bit of a faff, really—”

  “It looks pretty simple to me.” She points at the sword. “You’re stealing that, aren’t you?”

  Schuyler scratches the back of his neck. “It’s not what it looks like.”

  “What is it, then?”

  Schuyler doesn’t reply.

  “Tell me,” Fifer says.

  “I can’t,” he says.

  “Tell me now,” Fifer repeats. “Or I swear to you I’ll walk out of here and you’ll never see me again.” Her words are angry, only she doesn’t sound angry. She sounds upset.

  Schuyler looks at her for a moment, then steps forward and takes her hand. Fifer doesn’t move. They stand there, hands clasped, staring at each other in a way that makes me think I shouldn’t be here.

  She rises on her toes and leans against him, her lips moving toward his, as if she’s about to kiss him. Schuyler’s eyes are as round as mine feel; he looks as if he’s about to devour her on the spot. Then, in a flash, she snatches the sword from his hand.

  It takes a moment for him to snap out of his daze.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Fifer backs away from him, pointing the sword at his chest.

  “Taking this. Until you tell me what you need it for.”

  Schuyler’s eyes gleam with anger, and I feel a prickle of fear. I can’t decide if Fifer is ridiculously brave or ridiculously foolish.

  He whirls around then—the movement so sudden and fast it makes me jump—and reaches into the tomb. He yanks out a scabbard. It was once brown leather, I suppose, but now it’s as green as everything else around us.

  “Do you know what this place is?” He fastens the scabbard around his waist.

  Fifer shakes her head. She’s standing close to me now; I can feel her trembling.

  “It’s the tomb of the Green Knight,” Schuyler says. “Heard of him?”

  Fifer shakes her head again.

  “What about that?” Schuyler points at the sword. “Called the Azoth. Lots of fairy tales told about it. Elizabeth, surely you’ve heard one or two.”

  Fifer looks at me; we both look at the sword. The blade is huge: made of silver, cut through with swirls of bronze, three feet long at least. The hilt is solid bronze, encrusted with emeralds of every shape, size, and shade of green.