Half-Witch

by John Schoffstall

Despite her fatigue from working all day long, Lizbet could not get to sleep. Nameless anxieties bedeviled her. Every tiny noise in the night brought her fully awake again. Maybe it was just the uncertainty of the task to come, and the peril her father was in. She turned over and over, counted sheep, did the times tables, and tried to conjugate the verb “to love” in Latin: amo, amas, amat. Amamus, amatis, amant . . . Finally, after hours, she slipped into troubled and anxious dreams.

  In her dreams she was riding the witch horse. A swarm of clockwork flies was biting the horse’s flanks. The horse’s tail slapped at them. The flies bit Lizbet’s legs, because they were witch legs. Then they bit her waist, chest, arms, and neck. They buzzed around her face. Lizbet batted at the flies. Her arms were white and silky as birch bark too, like her legs. The birch bark covered her chest and went up her neck, and as she touched her cheeks she found that her face was covered with it as well. She caught one of the mechanical flies between her fingers and squished it. Timor flowed over her fingertips, clear and chemical. She licked up a tiny, bitter drop with her tongue. Fear filled her.

  She was wide awake. Her heart was beating fast. She lay quietly on her pallet, her thoughts racing as fast as her heart. Her thoughts went, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!

  Lizbet sat up. The fire had decayed to embers. Lizbet wrapped her blanket around herself against the cold, and descended the ladder. The Outlaw’s canvas cigar bag was on the table where Strix had left it. Lizbet took out a cigar. It smelled pleasantly spicy when she put it to her nose. You were supposed to cut off one end before you lit it, weren’t you? Lizbet picked an end, and bit it off with her teeth. The cigar didn’t taste as nice as it smelled. Crouching on the hearthstone, she held the cigar tip among the coals until it smoldered. She put the other end between her lips and inhaled deeply.

  It was like inhaling a cocklebur. Lizbet coughed violently, almost retching. She thrashed back and forth, gasping for air. Her head swam.

  “You’re not supposed to breathe it in,” came Strix’s voice from the loft. “Just fill your mouth with smoke.”

  Lizbet’s coughs resolved after half a minute. Strix climbed down from the loft and sat at the table. “You don’t have to smoke cigars, you know,” she said.

  “What else do witches do? Do they partake of inebriating spirits?”

  “Mrs. Woodcot drinks mushroom and calamus root brandy,” Strix said. “And she takes snuff.”

  Lizbet found the Outlaw’s jug and poured out a mug of rancid red whiskey. It was even more awful than the cigar: it stung her mouth and even the inside of her nose as it went down, and left her gasping.

  After several more swallows, Lizbet’s head felt light and heavy at the same time. She liked the feeling, and to celebrate she tried dancing with her new witch legs and fell on the floor, giggling uncontrollably. Strix rolled her eyes. Lizbet next decided she could convert Strix to Christianity by singing her all the Christmas carols she knew at the top of her lungs.

  She was belting out the second verse of Adeste Fideles when she realized she didn’t feel so good any more. The room was spinning, and her stomach was—

  “Strix, I’m going to be . . . uh . . .”

  Lizbet barely made it to the door. She spent the next hour spread-eagled across the doorsill, vomiting onto the stone doorstep, while Strix alternately giggled over her and tried to express sympathy. Strix was not good at this.

  “Say ‘there, there,’” Lizbet said.

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what people say, that’s why.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know . . . oh, I’m going to be sick again.”

  “There, there,” Strix said, patting Lizbet’s heaving back. “There, there.”

  When she was finished, Strix put Lizbet to bed. She awoke that afternoon with the strong impression that her head would explode all over the cabin if she moved a muscle. Gravity had gone haywire too, and seemed to be pulling her in every which direction.

  “Do I have blood poisoning again?” she asked Strix in a whisper.

  “No, I think there’s another explanation,” Strix said.

  In the misery of her hangover, Lizbet clung to this tiny consolation: she had tried to sin like a witch, and failed. She hated both cigars and liquor. She hoped that meant she hadn’t really turned into a witch. Please let it mean that. I’m not becoming a witch, she told herself fiercely. I’m not, I’m not.

  Chapter 10

  The witch horse took four days to complete. Lizbet’s skills slowly improved, although she still lagged behind Strix. It was a large beast that looked like a dappled horse if you didn’t look too closely. If you did, you could see the patchwork pieces of the Outlaw’s clothing and bed linens that Lizbet had sewn together to make its skin. In its way, it was as mixed-up as Mrs. Woodcot’s house, which seemed to be the way witches did things. That didn’t make it any less impressive or horse-like. It neighed and whinnied, and reared up on its hind legs most grandly, browsed on the first shoots of spring grass, and in all ways acted like a great big beautiful horse.

  They threw blankets over the horse’s back to sit on. Dried hams and whatever other food they could find went into a couple of bags, along with a jug of water. Strix insisted on bringing the last of the cigars, and wore the Outlaw’s bandoleer around her chest.

  In the half-light before dawn, the air was cold and damp. The sky above the Montagnes had just begun to turn pale. The witch horse shivered and clinked its silverware hooves, as if it were eager to be off.

  “I think we’re ready,” Strix said. She linked the fingers of both hands together. “Step here, and I’ll boost you onto Violette’s back.”

  “Who?”

  “The horse.”

  “But ‘Violette’ is a girl’s name. He’s a stallion.”

  “I like boys with girls’ names,” Strix said. “It makes them seem more masculine.”

  “It violates the natural order of things,” Lizbet complained.

  “There isn’t any natural order of things,” Strix said. “We just make up stuff. Are you getting on Violette or not?”

  “Wait,” Lizbet said.

  She hadn’t tried to talk to Heaven in days, and her need to hear God’s familiar voice had been growing. She said grace before every meal (while Strix fidgeted and stuck her fingers in her ears) and said her prayers every night before bed, but it wasn’t the same. Things hadn’t gone well the last few times she spoke with God, and she was scared to try, but also scared not to try. What would He think of her witch legs? But despite her recent problems with Him, He was a dear old friend, she missed Him, and she couldn’t simply give up on Him without trying one more time.

  She fished a host out of her pocket. “What’s that?” Strix asked.

  “It’s a cracker that the priest blesses,” Lizbet said. “It becomes the body of Christ.”

  Strix took this concept in stride. She put out her hand. “Can I see?”

  Lizbet handed her the host, but the moment it touched Strix’s fingertips, Strix shrieked and dropped it. Tendrils of smoke arose from her fingers. She stuck both hands in her mouth.

  Lizbet retrieved the host from the ground. It seemed the body of Christ and the flesh of witches did not get along. “Are you okay?” she asked. Strix glared at her.

  Lizbet, with trepidation, put the host on her tongue. It tasted more brackish than she remembered. Maybe that was the witchy part of her rejecting it. Or maybe dirt had gotten on it when Strix dropped it. But at least Lizbet’s tongue did not burst into flame. She felt encouraged by this.

  “God?” she said. “Hello, God?”

  “Lizbet!” boomed a cheerful voice. “What’s cookin’?”

  God always called her ‘Elizabeth.’ Always.

  “Who are you?” she said.

  “It’s God, darlin’. Who else would I be? I’m here in Hea
ven, resting my butt on a golden throne, surrounded by Powers and Principalities, all flappin’ their wings and singin’ to beat the band. Chowin’ down on ambrosia, bouncing the cherubs on my knee. Not as special as it’s cracked up to be, but not bad, not bad. How you doin’, kid? How’s tricks?”

  “You’re not God,” Lizbet said. “You’re not fooling me. Who are you really? Where’s God? I want to speak to Him.”

  “The name’s Belial, kid. I’m sort of helping God out for now. He’s indisposed. You might say.”

  “What do you mean by ‘indisposed’?” Lizbet said. “Is He okay?”

  “He’s fine. Now, what’s your beef? I haven’t got all day.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you, I want to talk to God,” Lizbet said. “I’m not leaving until I hear from Him.”

  A deep sigh. “Sweetheart, no can do. The old man’s in the pokey, and the boys aren’t in a mood to let Him have visitors. We got a history with Him, and there are a lot of hard feelings.”

  God was in jail? Lizbet tried to grapple with this idea.

  “Let me talk to Jesus, then,” she said.

  “Hah! We’d like to talk to him too. The kid’s on the lam. Hell is offering a reward of ten thousand silver talents if you catch Christ and hand him over. You’ll have to steal the talents yourself, of course, but we’ll keep the constables off your tail.

  “Anyways, babe, I’m better than God or Christ. They had all these rules and restrictions, thou shalt not this, remember that, honor something else. Every damn thing you wanted to do was a sin. But Hell’s in charge now, and you can forget that crap. You get to do whatever you want. See? It’s gonna be great.”

  “Whatever I want?”

  “The sky’s the limit. Go nuts.”

  Lizbet thought about this. “Can I steal someone’s horse?” she asked.

  “You bet!”

  “But you said that everyone gets to do whatever they want.”

  “So?”

  “So I get to steal a horse, but the man I steal it from doesn’t get what he wants.”

  “He just has to steal it back from you. See how it works?”

  “Then I don’t get what I want.”

  “So steal it from him again!”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Lizbet said. “No one’s going to want to spend their time stealing each other’s horses back and forth. I liked it the old way.”

  “All right, maybe we haven’t thrashed out the details yet,” Belial said. He sounded peeved. “I guess there’ll have to be some compromises, for practicality’s sake. In the meantime, just figure out stuff for yourself. Check back with us, we’ll probably have some rules posted in a week or two.”

  “I’ll do that,” Lizbet said. “And when I do, God had better be okay. Or you’ll have to answer to me!” She swallowed hard, and contact with Heaven was lost.

  Uh-oh. She had spoken out of emotion. Had she really threatened to storm Heaven and rescue God? As if she didn’t have enough to do already.

  “How’s God?” Strix said.

  “That wasn’t God,” Lizbet said. “Someone named Belial. I think Hell won its war with Heaven. The devils are in charge.” She shook her head. “They have no idea what they’re doing.”

  “Devils aren’t much for organization,” Strix said. “They like having a good time, they play too rough, and won’t clean up afterward.”

  “It’s funny,” Lizbet said, “but I don’t think this changes anything. For me, I mean. My father’s still in prison. I still have to get over the Montagnes.”

  “Right. Let’s go, then.”

  Lizbet put her foot into Strix’s offered hands and struggled onto Violette’s back. Strix vaulted on behind her. Lizbet stroked Violette’s neck, whispered in his ear, and they were off.

  The air was chilly and smelled of spring. The brilliant edge of the sun crept over the mountaintops. The sky was blue for ever and ever. It was a fine day for a journey over the edge of the world, and at this moment, whether the Powers of Evil or the Forces of Good ran the universe seemed to matter very little.

  As Violette toiled up the mountain road, the evergreen trees covering the mountain became shorter and more windblown, until they were little more than masses of needles and twisted branches hugging the ground. The road grew steeper and more rugged. In another hour, they had left the evergreens behind, and Violette’s silverware hooves clinked on windswept granite. Vast crevasses filled with snow and ice yawned on either side. The only route upward was along a spine of fissured rock that snaked up the mountainside. In a wilderness of ice and stone, Lizbet and Strix were the only living things. If you counted Strix.

  The wind, which had been a fresh spring breeze down in the fir and hemlock forest, now whipped around them in a gale. Lizbet’s skirt fluttered behind her like a flag. Her arms were numb from cold. After another hour of this, Lizbet and Strix agreed to cover themselves with the blankets, instead of using them as a saddle. That kept them warmer for a bit, but the higher they went, the harder and colder the winds blew, and before long even being covered with blankets didn’t count for much.

  “How much longer?” Lizbet yelled. Even right next to one another, they had to yell to make themselves heard over the roaring of the wind.

  “How should I know?” Strix yelled back. “I’ve never been here before.”

  Someone had been here though. The precipitous ledges of rock on which Violette struggled up the mountainside were not just a path found by luck. They traveled on a road that someone had built. Switchbacks had been cut into the steep cliffs, voids had been filled with rubble, obstructing boulders had been rolled aside. Who could possibly live up here to do this? Had the route been cut by trolls, or giants? The work was years or decades old: where stone was broken, lichen had crept over the cut edges. Lichen grew undisturbed on the rocks beneath Violette’s hooves. Whoever built this high and perilous route no longer used it.

  The wind blew without rest. As Violette climbed ever higher, Lizbet and Strix found themselves surrounded by bare rock. Even the snow could not resist the wind, and lingered in white rivulets only in cracks between the stones. When Lizbet looked down, Abalia was lost in haze and distance. Above, the sky had become so dark blue that it was almost black, but the sun was brighter than ever.

  Lizbet shivered constantly in the cold. The blankets weren’t enough. The wind cut right through them. It felt as if it were cutting through her own body as well, as if the wind were ripping her apart. The sensation was unpleasant and frightening. Lizbet turned her head to yell at Strix, but instead of words, something else came out of her mouth. A pale white mass bubbled out of her throat like a balloon, filling her mouth and nose, choking her.

  Her soul.

  Frantically, Lizbet tried to swallow it. She pushed at her soul with her hand, trying to shove it back down her throat. It must be the wind. They were near the heart of winds that blew down from the Montagnes. The winds were so strong here that they could even tear out the soul of a girl Lizbet’s age.

  Lizbet’s soul filled her mouth. She couldn’t speak. Only her frantic eyes begged Strix for aid.

  Strix threw herself on top of Lizbet. One hand covered Lizbet’s mouth and nose. With her other hand, she pulled the blanket over them both.

  The effect was immediate. It was if someone had buried Lizbet beneath fifty pounds of fallen leaves and crumpled paper. The force of the wind lessened. The sensation of Lizbet being torn in two receded. Her soul slid down her throat and melted into her body. For now, Lizbet was whole again.

  She was warmer as well. Strix was good insulation against the awful wind.

  “Thank you,” Lizbet whispered through Strix’s fingers. She thought of something. “But isn’t your soul in danger as well?”

  “I don’t have a soul,” Strix said. “All I have is a body. Souls are nothing but bother.”

  Li
zbet decided this was not a good time to argue with that idea.

  Clink-clink, clink-clink went Violette’s hooves on the stones.

  “I suppose I’ll just have to cover you up the rest of the way over the Montagnes,” Strix said. “Mortals are so frail.”

  Beneath the blanket, and beneath Strix, it was dark, and oddly cozy, with the wind howling without. It reminded Lizbet of autumns when she was little. People swept fallen leaves from their dooryards into piles. It was fun to hide underneath a big pile of leaves, concealed yet still able to breathe, and still able to see scraps of sunlight coming through the crevices. Children played hide-and-seek in the piles, covering themselves up. Lizbet remembered how the dry leaf dust in her nose always made her sneeze, and gave her away.

  She sneezed.

  She waited for the automatic ‘God bless you,’ that people said when you sneezed. Strix was silent.

  “You should say ‘God bless you’ when someone sneezes,” Lizbet said.

  “I told you,” Strix said. “I don’t like God. I wouldn’t wish his blessings on anyone.”

  “You’re overthinking this, Strix. It’s just to be polite. People say all sorts of things to be polite, without worrying about the theological implications.”

  “What do mortals say when someone farts?” Strix asked.

  “Nothing! The very idea.”

  “Do they say something when someone pees?”

  “No!”

  “When they poop?”

  “No! No, no no!”

  “How about when they—”

  “Strix, stop! Whatever you’re going to say, I’m scared to hear it. We only say something for a sneeze.”

  Higher and higher they climbed. Lizbet’s breath came fast in the thin air. Gusts of wind that found their way through the blankets and through Strix bit into her flesh like iron needles.

  Violette halted. He restlessly clinked his hooves on the stones.

  Had the path given out? Had they reached a dead end? “What’s happening?” Lizbet asked anxiously. “Is everything okay?”

  “I think so,” Strix said. “We’re at the top.”