A man’s face peered over the edge of the haymow. “Nope, ain’t none of those tramps up here,” he called down. “Don’t know what was making noise last night, then.” An inaudible voice from below. The man’s face disappeared, and Lizbet heard the rungs of a ladder creaking.
Lizbet and Strix waited until the two men had driven the cows out, and the barn door creaked closed behind them, and then some more time for good measure, before they climbed down from the haymow and snuck out of the barn.
On the road again, for breakfast they ate some of the bread and dried beef Lizbet had bought. The morning was chilly, chillier than Lizbet would have liked, having come without coat or cloak.
“It’s colder than you would think for this time in April,” Lizbet said, shivering.
“We’re already a lot higher into the Montagnes du Monde than Abalia is,” Strix said. “It’s only going to get colder. We should turn back.”
“Of course we won’t turn back,” Lizbet said. “We’ve only just started.”
“We’ll probably freeze to death before long,” Strix said cheerfully.
“You sound like you want to quit,” Lizbet said.
“Of course I want to quit,” Strix said. “I told you before, I’m only here on account of Mrs. Woodcot. If you quit, I can go home.”
“Well, I’m not going to quit,” Lizbet said. “So you can forget about that.”
“Will you quit when you’re frozen stiff?”
“I’ll walk faster, to keep warm,” Lizbet said. Strix just grumbled.
They passed no more farms. As they climbed the road, the fields around them became less sod and more rocky outcrops. The road itself became rockier, steeper, and harder on Lizbet’s feet, even in her walking boots. The sunlit peaks of the Montagnes du Monde high above them, though, seemed no closer. Although the snow had already melted where they were walking now, the peaks remained snow covered throughout the year. Lizbet could see plumes of snow, whipped up by fierce winds, swirling off the steep-sided mountaintops.
Frequently they crossed over streams, bubbling and frothing with spring melt-water. It tasted wonderful, icy-cold, laden with faint mineral flavors. “I’ve never had water like this,” Lizbet said to Strix as they paused at one rushing brook. She cupped the water in her palms and let it dribble down her face. “It’s like you’re drinking the mountains themselves. You’re taking them into your body, making them part of you, making their soul part of yours.”
“Cows in the upper meadows drink from the same streams,” Strix said. “Do you feel your soul becoming more like a cow’s?” She squinted at Lizbet. “Maybe you look more like a cow already.”
“Why do you have to spoil everything?” Lizbet complained. “Strix, you’re so rude.”
“Only to mortals,” Strix said. “I am perfectly polite to jinn, peri, dakini, tengu, and any other beings who matter.”
Lizbet said, “People who are polite are polite to everyone. Being polite only to important people isn’t really being polite. It’s being servile.”
“I am not servile! How dare you call me servile?”
“Anyway,” Lizbet said, “Mrs. Woodcot is a witch too, and she’s not rude.”
“Mrs. Woodcot doesn’t have to hike miles into the mountains in the company of a prissy mortal mooncalf.” Strix looked her up and down. “A short prissy mortal mooncalf.”
Strix was a half inch taller than Lizbet. Maybe a quarter inch.
Lizbet’s Christian charity, normally considerable, now abandoned her. “It’s obvious Mrs. Woodcot is not your mother,” she said with decision. “She would never have raised a daughter with the manners of a drunken tinker.”
Strix laughed, a sharp sound like a bark. “Mortals are so stupid,” she said. “Not only did Mrs. Woodcot raise me, she made me.”
Lizbet hesitated. She had not expected that. “Only God can make people,” she said.
“Huh,” Strix said. “I thought people were made by lovers, tangling up their limbs in untidy knots and exchanging vile fluids. I don’t understand where God comes in.” She peered at Lizbet closely. “Are you catching a pestilent fever? Your skin is very red all of a sudden.”
Lizbet knew little about the practical details of physical love, but Strix’s description was uncomfortably close to what older girls had told her in horrified whispers.
“Anyway,” Strix said, “I’m not people. The old fussbudget in the sky has nothing to do with me. Mrs. Woodcot made me out of papers, dead leaves, cinnamon, twine, old teabags, wire and beans and shells and whatever else she had around the house. That’s how witches do. I told you last night. We make things.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Lizbet said, staring at her. Paper? Dead leaves? She remembered how odd Strix’s hand had felt: it was exactly like holding a hand made of dry leaves tied together.
“Mortals don’t know anything about anything,” Strix said with satisfaction. “Look here.” She pointed to her left cheek, where dark parallel lines swam beneath the tawny surface. “Read this.”
“Read?” Lizbet bent close. Yes, the dark lines were rows of letters and words, within Strix’s skin. If she squinted, she could even read them: “‘. . . brown or speckled trout may be taken with angleworms or red worms, crickets, grubs, portions of beef or pork cooked or raw, the liver of . . .’”
“It’s from a book about fishing,” Strix said. “I’m also made of tax rolls, broadsides, a pamphlet by a mad Englishman who claims you can square the circle, and some love letters.”
“Love letters!”
Strix smiled and nodded. “The best one is from a comptroller of stamps to a woman who I suspect was not his wife. It’s quite passionate and lewd. I have to use two mirrors to read it, because it’s on my butt. Do you want to look at it?”
Lizbet shook her head in horror. “I don’t want to look at your butt!” For a moment, she had been charmed by the idea that Strix was partly made of love letters, but the offer to examine her bottom was appalling.
It was too late. Strix had already hoisted her layered skirts above her waist and bent over. Her gray wool stockings were such a mass of knots and darns that there was hardly any normal stocking left. They were held up by garters made of rope as thick as a ship’s hawser. That’s all Lizbet saw before she threw her hands over her eyes and shrieked.
When she dared peek between her fingers, Strix had reversed her dishabille and was standing in the road pouting. She caught Lizbet’s eye, stuck out her tongue, and made a rude noise.
Lizbet could take no more. “I can’t abide you any longer!” she yelled. “You are coarse, you are boorish, you . . . you . . . you eat mice! You lift up your dress in the middle of the road and show people your butt! I can’t stand being with you another minute. I don’t want to see you ever again. Good-bye!”
With that, Lizbet turned and stamped up the road, away from Strix.
She had expected an outburst of abuse. None came. After a minute, Lizbet looked behind her.
No Strix. The road was empty, except for some trash: scraps of paper, some rusty wire, a brown tangle of twine. A breeze wrapped the twine around Lizbet’s leg.
Anxiety lanced through her. What had she done? She still had to go over the Montagnes du Monde, and she knew no good way to do it. She wasn’t dressed warmly, and Strix was right, it was getting colder the higher she went. She had almost no food left, and little prospect of getting any, up here in the lonely mountains. She probably shouldn’t have sent Strix away. Although—Strix wasn’t going to fly her over on a broom, and didn’t seem to have any good ideas of how to get over the mountains. Maybe it didn’t make any difference.
The road became increasingly steep, rocky, and tiring to climb. A trickle of water came down its center, and it gradually began to seem less like a road and more like a streambed. The alpine meadows on either side gave way to a dark forest of fi
r and hemlock.
Around noontime Lizbet stopped to rest. She was exhausted. No sooner had she sat down than the urge to sleep came over her, and she had to fight to stay awake in the hazy light of the forest and the turpentine smell of the conifers. She had meant to hoard the little food she had, but found she was ravenously hungry. She quickly finished the rest of the meat and bread, and she was still hungry.
Through the trees, she could see glimpses of the peaks of the Montagnes du Monde. They looked no closer.
Besides hunger and exhaustion, Lizbet had another problem: her feet. Despite her practical, clunky boots, she had developed large and painful blisters. She was unused to hiking. The distance and the roughness of the road had beaten her feet badly. When she finished eating and got on her feet again, the pain came back with full force. She squeaked out a little cry of pain.
For the first time she thought about giving up.
What then? Well, then her father would languish in prison until he died.
Also, Strix had encouraged her to give up. The nerve. How dare she? Mrs. Woodcot had sent her to help Lizbet.
Anger with Strix, coupled with pity for her father, drove her on. Lizbet again trudged up the road into the fir and hemlock forest, on painful, blistered feet.
The pain worsened through the afternoon. The road only became more steep. As she climbed higher, the trees became shorter, but the forest remained thick and impenetrable. The air was raw and cold, even in the April afternoon, and here and there were patches of snow still on the ground. Lizbet worried what the coming night would be like. She had heard that woodcutters lived in the high forests, and hoped she would come across the house of a woodcutter’s family with whom she could spend the night, and who might advise her on the road ahead. And even give her a bit of food? One could hope.
But hope was all she had. An occasional boot print could be found in the damp earth where water trickled down the road’s center. There was no other sign of human life.
Evening came on, and exceeding cold. Lizbet shivered miserably. Between the cold, exhaustion, and the pain in her feet, she was close to turning around and trudging down the mountain in defeat. How had she ever expected to cross the Montagnes du Monde by herself? But even if she gave up, she would have to survive the night here, high on the mountain. Could she endure the cold and exposure?
It occurred to her for the first time that she might not even be able to get off the mountain. That she might die here.
Until now, death had been a safely abstract danger, comfortably distant in the future. It dawned upon Lizbet that death might not be far off at all. It might be now, soon, this very night, if she didn’t find some place out of the cold.
For the first time since Carl had pursued her through the Grove of Frenzy, she felt fear. Cold and death now stalked her as Carl had. Where was there a Mrs. Woodcot, however witchy, however evil, to save her?
Lizbet immediately felt ashamed. She was a Christian maiden. If anyone should save her, it would be God. At least, she should give Him one more chance.
In the icy darkness, Lizbet seated herself on a patch of the furry moss that covered the rocks in this place. She felt in her pocket for the hosts and slipped one into her mouth. Dry and slick to her tongue, it slowly melted.
Time passed.
“God?”
“What is it? Hurry up.”
God sounded rushed. “God? It’s me, Elizabeth.”
“Yes, yes, Elizabeth, what is it you want? Please make it quicker than you usually do.”
In the background, Lizbet heard shouts, explosions, and the ringing of steel on steel. “If you’re too busy,” she said, “can I talk to Jesus instead? It’d be okay.”
“Jesus! Hah! Talk to him if you can find him. Here I’ve got devils coming out my wazoo, and the Galilee Kid is running around turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, whipping moneychangers. I said to him, ‘You couldn’t have whipped a devil instead?’ He turned one devil into an olive tree. One single devil. That was his contribution to the war effort. I raised such a klutz.”
Lizbet said, “I’ve gotten myself into a fix. It’s a long story—”
“You’re stranded on a mountain in the cold, I know. I advise prayer. And hurry off the mountain as quickly as you can. Go to confession and confess all the sins you’ve been piling up. Is there anything else?”
“But I don’t want to get off the mountain! I’ve told you why. I’m trying to cross the Montagnes du Monde to find the Margrave’s book to save my father!”
Nothing, for a minute or two. Lizbet thought she heard screams in the distance. And billowing sounds. The beating of wings? Flames?
“God?”
“Are you still here? What is it? I’m busy.”
“I’m scared, Lord. Will I die?”
“Could be. Try not to though. If you die now, it’s either Purgatory or Hell for you. Those sins, you know. Lies, theft, consorting with witches. What’s next? Murder? High treason? I’m disappointed in you, Elizabeth.”
Without thinking, all her pain, frustration, and fear poured out. Lizbet yelled at God, “And I’m disappointed in you!”
She held her breath. What had she said?
“God?” she whispered.
Confused noise in the background. Yells, explosions, the clang of bells.
“God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”
No answer came. After a few minutes, the host dissolved completely and contact with Heaven was lost.
So everything was in the balance. Really everything. Not just life and death, but Lizbet’s eternal salvation as well.
In the gathering darkness, Lizbet stared at the road ahead. Someone must live up here, to have built a road. To have left a bootprint. There must be a house somewhere ahead. There must be. She rose. On painful feet, she struggled forward, up the mountain, into deepening darkness and cold. Every step felt like walking on knives.
Chapter 7
If it hadn’t been almost night, Lizbet might not have seen the cabin. Light from a window shone from off to the right, deep in the forest. A footpath led to it, but where the path joined the road was inconspicuous. Fir branches stung her face as she picked her way along the footpath, headed for that yellow glow that promised warmth, blessed warmth, perhaps food, perhaps a safe bed for the night.
The cabin was more crudely made than any building Lizbet had ever seen, walls of undressed logs. Its single window was oiled paper, not glass, and she couldn’t see inside. With a hand numb and trembling from cold, she pounded on the door.
She pounded again. Was there a sound inside?
The door cracked open. An eye peered out. A man’s voice said, “Who’re you? What d’you want?”
“I’m Lizbet,” Lizbet said. Her voice was shaking from cold and exhaustion. “I’m climbing the mountain. I’m cold, and I need a place to rest for the night. Can I . . . can I stay in your house?”
“Who’s with you?”
Lizbet shook her head. “No one, I’m alone.”
“What’s your business up here?” The voice was suspicious.
“I’m trying to cross the Montagnes du Monde. I . . . it’s complicated. Can I come in? I’m really cold.”
A long pause. The door was flung open. “Come in, then.”
A man stood framed in the lighted doorway. Canvas trousers and wool shirt, ragged at the edges and none too clean. His short grizzled beard was in the same condition. His eyes were bloodshot, and his gaze wary. He had long bangs that hid his forehead and almost got in his eyes. Behind him, Lizbet could see no one else in the cabin.
When Lizbet hoped to find a woodcutter’s cabin, she had assumed she would find a family: man, wife, children. She hesitated. This situation was not proper, according to how Lizbet had been raised. An icy gust of wind blew some bits of paper and other trash around her, into the cabin.
“Wait!” Lizbet squeaked. She dashed into the cabin. The man grunted and closed the door behind her. Thunk! He lowered a heavy wooden bar down across the doorframe. What is he protecting himself from, way up here? Lizbet wondered. Wild animals? . . . Monsters? For the moment, she was glad she had made the decision to come inside.
The cabin was blessedly warm, but smelly. A fire crackled and popped sparks onto the hearth, its flames providing the room’s only light. Shadows filled the corners. The air reeked of smoke, spoiled food, and unwashed flesh. Lizbet tried to keep herself from wrinkling her nose. She was a guest here, and that would not be polite.
“You’re shivering,” the man said. He got her a heavy wool blanket and draped it over her shoulders. The blanket was heavy and felt greasy, but within its folds, Lizbet slowly warmed.
The man seated her at a rough-hewn wood table, grimy like everything else. From a pot over the fire he ladled an untidy pile of root vegetables—potatoes, parsnips, or turnips, Lizbet couldn’t tell—onto a chipped plate, along with a hunk of boiled meat. “Go on,” he said. “Eat.”
He produced a cigar, lit it from the fire, and smoked it as he watched Lizbet eat, tapping the ashes onto the floor.
The meal was filling, but bland. Lizbet, ravenous, cleaned the plate in a minute. The man smiled for the first time. His teeth were mostly gone; the ones remaining were rotted brown pegs. “You’re a hungry, sturdy girlie, ain’t you?” he said. He fetched a stoneware jug from somewhere in the shadows and poured a libation into a mug. “Whiskey,” he said. “Want some?”
Lizbet shook her head quickly. Whiskey was part of a far-off, perilous world of card-playing, fiddle music, thievery, fortune-telling, atheism, and the woman in the pothouse whose white thighs showed when she danced. Lizbet wondered whether Strix drank whiskey. She decided that she really wished she hadn’t sent Strix away.
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