Half-Witch

by John Schoffstall

  “Come!”

  “No!”

  All things hung in the balance. Lizbet squeezed Strix as tightly as she could. A drop of blood ran down from her lips to her chin.

  After an endless moment, Mrs. Woodcot released Strix’s arm and took a step back. When she spoke, her voice wavered. “This can’t be. You can’t defy me. It isn’t possible. You are my thrall. I made you. My command is law to you. It must be obeyed, as the leaf falls from the tree.”

  Strix’s face was a mask of defiance. She bared her teeth. She balled up her fists. “Go command some other Strix,” she growled. “I’m not the Strix you made. You heard right: I was dissolved by the Pope of Storms. But I was made again.” She pointed at Lizbet. “By her. She is my creator now! Lizbet can command me, if she wants. You can’t. Not any longer.”

  “Piffle. Mortals cannot make witches.”

  Untangling herself from Lizbet’s arms, and dropping to one knee, Strix yanked down Lizbet’s stockings and lifted up her skirt. Lizbet’s birchbark skin shone white in the midday sun. Strix said, “What part of this looks like a mortal to you?”

  “Unnnggh,” went Lizbet, trying to push her skirt down. “Nnngg!”

  “The part above the waist, mostly,” Mrs. Woodcot said, “which obviously still possesses a most unwitchlike modesty. However, your point is well-taken.” A slight smile played about her lips. “Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do. I have lost my thrall to a half-breed witch, and my own lord and maker is partly to blame. An embarrassing blunder on his part.

  “I collect such blunders. When I have enough, I will challenge the Pope of Storms for mastery, and his blunders will fight on my side against him. Such will have to be my consolation for losing my thrall. Ta, then. I’m off. I’ll make myself a new Strix when I arrive home. Or maybe a tabby cat would be less trouble.” Mrs. Woodcot twirled the long ribbon on her hat around one finger. The whirling white ribbon sliced through her like a sword, cutting her to pieces, and when Lizbet blinked, there was nothing left but a white goat in the road, a white cow chewing its cud in a field, and a white Andromeda bush. Doves’ wings beat the air like departing laughter, until they vanished into the sky.

  Strix rose. Her voice was drained, but at peace. “I knew Mrs. Woodcot would show up sooner or later,” she said. “I knew I’d have to face her, but I didn’t know what would happen. I was worried that I might still belong to her. You have no idea how good it felt, the moment I discovered I could refuse to do what she said.”

  “Nnng,” Lizbet said.

  “Hold still,” Strix said. She placed her hands on Lizbet’s shoulders. Her face approached Lizbet’s. Lizbet closed her eyes. She felt Strix’s breath on her face. Strix’s lips brushed hers. Click! went Strix’s teeth as they severed a knot. Then a brief jab of pain as Strix yanked a thread out. On and on it went, stitch after stitch, pain and joy mixed together until Lizbet could not tell which was which.

  Chapter 22

  As they started down the road again, Fudge reappeared from hiding and waddled along beside Lizbet and Strix. He chatted about this or that: the botany of flowers and shrubs they passed on the road, the history of the Holy Roman Empire, the quarrels and amours of angels. It was rather like being in the company of a talking encyclopedia that randomly flipped from page to page.

  A good bit of Fudge’s chatter, though, was private memories: what someone Lizbet had never heard of said to someone else she had never heard of, years ago. Sometimes it was a clever remark, or a stinging insult, or a declaration of love in a moment of private passion. In the memories of people whose souls Fudge had snuffled up his nose, it was odd how personal moments of high emotion, of no consequence to anyone but those who experienced them, loomed larger than the grand march of history that swept the lives and fates of millions before it.

  The closer they came to the outskirts of Abalia, the more Lizbet’s thoughts turned to the Margrave and what she would say to him. In her mind’s eye, she saw him in his quarters, a dim and spectral presence like a living shadow. A table before him was strewn with tiny decanters and caskets from which he sometimes took a swallow.

  With a little gasp, Lizbet understood for the first time what she had seen: without his soul, the Margrave had to drink the distilled emotions of others to maintain the illusion of a self. Those moments of strong feeling that breathe life into mortals were denied to him. If he were unable to consume the emotions of others, would he fade away entirely?

  But where was he obtaining them? From a witch, surely. The most likely suspect was Mrs. Woodcot.

  “Strix,” Lizbet said. “What do you know about Mrs. Woodcot and the Margrave? Mrs. Woodcot works for the Pope of Storms?”

  “She’s the thrall of the Pope of Storms,” Strix said. “He made her, like she made me. The Pope of Storms considers Hengest Wolftrow to be dangerous. He sent Mrs. Woodcot over the Montagnes to guard him. She’s supposed to prevent him from ever crossing the Montagnes again, or regaining his soul.”

  “But she’s also sustaining him? With distilled emotions?”

  “She plays more than one game,” Strix said. “If it weren’t for her, Hengest might dwindle to nothing. But then the Pope of Storms would call Mrs. Woodcot back. She doesn’t want that. She prefers living in mortal lands, where she’s powerful and feared. And, as you heard, she has designs on her master’s realms. It’s safer for her to carry on her plots against him at a distance.”

  “So if we needed the help of the Pope of Storms,” Lizbet said, “we could offer to take his side against her. Or if we wanted her help, we could offer to help her betray him.”

  Strix stopped. She put her hands on her hips. “What is wrong with you?” she said. “Haven’t you learned not to meddle in the affairs of witches? Don’t you have enough excitement in your life already? Haven’t both of us had enough catastrophes to last a lifetime, just in the past month and a half?”

  “I guess we have,” Lizbet said. “But we survived, after all. And if meddling in the affairs of witches doesn’t go right, maybe the answer is not to stop meddling, but to learn to meddle better. Two months ago, I don’t think I could have figured out how to get the earth witches to help us cross the Montagnes. But I did. I’ve learned some things.”

  “I never should have given you witch legs,” Strix said, shaking her head. “That was my first mistake.”

  “Actually,” Lizbet said, “I’ve learned to like them. I wouldn’t give them up for anything.”

  They spent the night in the same barn loft they had used on the way up the mountains. The next morning dawned clear, and they took to the road early. By mid-morning Lizbet spotted the church spires and crooked stone chimneys of Abalia peeking above the descending hills. They were alone on the road. By the time they entered Abalia proper, where gray flint buildings jammed against each other and leaned over twisty cobble streets, they had not seen a single person.

  “Such a wonderful city!” Fudge said. He craned his head around in wonderment. “So modern and scientific! Neat, square, every corner perfect, every stone aligned to its neighbor in perfect geometry and harmony!” He clasped his chest with his paw. “The multitudes within me knew of cities like this, but I never imagined I would see one myself.”

  “It’s gray, and dreary, and boring,” Strix said. “I like it.”

  “Also deserted,” Lizbet said. “Something’s wrong. Where is everyone?”

  “Still abed?” Strix said. She stretched, and yawned. “Maybe they’re too bored to get up. I would be, if I lived here. I’d love that. I’d sleep all day.”

  Lizbet shook her head. “It’s nearly noon. Everyone should be on the street. Goodwives, servants, carriers, beggars.” She looked around. In a dark window, she thought she saw the flash of a pale face. She ran up the steps to that house and rapped on the door.

  But although she waited for minutes, and rapped the knocker again and again, there was no a
nswer.

  Had Abalia turned into a goblin town like Slattern, where people slept in the daytime and came out at night?

  She led the others in the direction of the Margrave’s Palace. As they neared the center of the city, streets widened and houses became taller and richer.

  Lizbet heard a sound, and stopped to listen. “Who’s doing all that screaming?” she asked.

  A woman in a black day-gown and white bonnet came fleeing up the street, gasping and shrieking. A flying creature the size of a terrier batted about her. It looked like a man and a lizard mixed together, with a whip tail and tiny scaly wings. It held a pair of shears in each of its four clawed feet. As it fluttered after the woman, its shears flashed and clicked, and bits of the woman’s clothing flew off and fell to the ground. The woman, screaming and crying, swiveled and danced about, trying to kick it away. Her clothing was already half cut to pieces. Through rents, her shift and even her pale naked flesh could be seen. Lizbet blushed.

  The lizard-devil tittered. “Naked you were in the Garden of Eden, naked you will be again! Out, hypocrisy! Out, false modesty, that teases by concealing! God the Tyrant has fallen, and Hell will return the world to its former innocence!”

  “Why, that’s the biggest humbug I’ve ever heard in my life!” Lizbet exclaimed. “Hell doesn’t care about innocence. You’re just finding an excuse to torment this poor woman. Talk about ‘hypocrisy.’ Shame on you!”

  The lizard-devil giggled. “Oh, look, another prudish girl who mistakes vanity for virtue. Why, I think you deserve my Snips of Truth more than the other.” It fluttered toward Lizbet, clicking its shears. Its former victim scurried away, pulling the tatters of her clothing around her.

  “You just can’t keep out of trouble, can you?” Strix said to Lizbet.

  Now what? The nose spell hadn’t worked so well the last time. Lizbet doubted that a rain of mice would help. She put up her fists. How did boys fistfight? She had no idea. And she thought fistfighting a devil might not work, anyway.

  The lizard-devil dived at her, its shears clicking. But at the last moment, it cursed and darted away. “What are you?” it snarled, fluttering over Lizbet’s head. “You stink of Christ!”

  “I do?” Lizbet said.

  “Pah!” The lizard-devil flew away. “And you!” it cried out at Strix, from high over her head. “What is a witch-child doing, consorting with a saint?”

  “She’s no saint,” Strix yelled upward. “Have you lost your mind?” Cursing, the lizard-devil fluttered off.

  Lizbet was prepared to admit she had not been especially saintly lately. What was the creature talking about? Then it came to her: a tiny bit of Christ’s essence was in shotgun shells in the Outlaw’s cartridge belt that she wore. Maybe that’s what the lizard-devil had sensed.

  Toward them, two devils drove a column of schoolchildren down the street. In front was a Common Lesser Furry Devil acting as a beadle, at their rear a naked Temptress, playing the part of a beldame. The two devils passed a brandy bottle between them, and another bottle circulated among the children. The boys were all dressed in girls’ dresses, and the girls in boys’ jackets and short pants. As they went down the street, each child beat the child before them on the fundament with a wooden spoon. They sang as they walked. The brandy did little for their ability to stay in tune.

  Hail, Father Satan!

  Prince of all the nations!

  Long live thy horns and teeth,

  And save our souls when we sneeze.

  “I’ve heard that all true poets are secretly of the Devil’s party,” Strix said, “but the reverse obviously isn’t true.”

  The center of Abalia was a carnival of the damned. Men, women, and children fled through the streets, pursued by devils. Beaten, stripped of their clothing, their skin painted with insulting and impious words, hoisted on ropes, batted back and forth from devil to devil like shuttlecocks, mortals were the playthings of the devils. Everywhere devils, hundreds of them. Lizbet realized that this must be what happened in Slattern. She almost wished the Pope of Storms were here to set things right.

  Chapter 23

  At the Margrave’s Palace, the insolent boy guard who had flirted with Lizbet didn’t offer her any trouble this time. That was because he had been tied by the wrists and ankles, and hoisted upside-down above the gates. Without his pants.

  “Hello, cute bottom,” Lizbet called upward as they passed beneath.

  “Lizbet!” Strix said. “So forward. For you, that is. Do you know this brat?”

  “Hey!” yelled the boy. “Get me down? I mean, please? Can you . . . use magic, or something? I’m sorry about last time. Hey!”

  The great wooden doors of the Margrave’s Palace, which had been unlocked on Lizbet’s first visit, were now shut. Lizbet pounded with her fist on the doors. A voice called faintly from within, “No admittance for devils! Go away!”

  “Please let us in!” Lizbet yelled. “We’re not devils! We’re here to see the Margrave!”

  “Can’t open up. Orders of the Margrave. A devil might get in.”

  “But we have something the Margrave wants! It’s a book.”

  “The Margrave’s interest in book collecting has been overtaken by his interest in self-preservation,” the voice inside yelled. “Come back in a few years, if the situation improves.”

  “This is different,” Lizbet yelled. “This is a really special book.” She pounded on the door. “Please let us in!”

  “Are you sure you’re not a devil? Go away, or we’ll pour boiling oil on you!”

  “An empty threat,” Strix said. “This is a palace. Where are they going to get boiling oil?”

  Two floors above them, a window creaked open. A battered black cauldron appeared in the open window. Lizbet, Strix, and Fudge hurriedly retreated. A voice behind the window shouted, “Heave away!” The cauldron tilted. A dark object crashed heavily down onto the slate step where Lizbet had been standing a moment before. Not boiling oil, but an immense book, as thick as it was broad.

  Fudge sniffed eagerly. “Words!” he said. “I smell savory words!” He waddled up to the book and flipped open its cover. “It’s an unabridged dictionary,” he said, wonder in his voice. “‘Aa. noun. Petrog. Rough, scoriaceous lava.’ ‘Aam. noun. A Netherlandish or German liquid measure.’ ‘Aani. noun. Egypt. Relig. The dog-headed ape, also called cynocephalus, beloved of the god Thoth.’ It’s all so wonderful!” His snotty nose twitched, drawing circles in the air. Bending over the dictionary, he snorted deeply and ecstatically. Tiny black letters lifted off the page and flew into his wet nostrils.

  “A sorry excuse for boiling oil,” Strix said.

  Lizbet looked up. Somewhere high in the Palace, atop six stories of rococo windows and stringcourses of stone acanthus, was the Margrave’s office. “If only we had a way to get to the Margrave,” she said. “If only I could speak to him, just for a minute. Strix, it’s a shame you never learned to fly a broom. But wait. That gives me an idea.”

  Lizbet approached the door again. She glanced upward nervously, but no more dictionary attacks were forthcoming. She pounded on the door. “If the Margrave wants to rid Abalia of the devils, we can help!” she yelled. “We are an emissary of witches. We seek an alliance with the Margrave against the devils.”

  “The Margrave is against witches too!” the voice from behind the door yelled.

  Lizbet persisted. “But main his problem right now is devils. We are two witches—or a witch-and-a-half, actually—with a captive goblin. We offer our services against the devils. If the Margrave’s situation is really that bad, he needs to speak to us.”

  “Captive?” said Fudge.

  “Services?” said Strix.

  “Shhh,” Lizbet said. “Play along.”

  Lizbet knew she was promising far more than she could deliver. How on earth would she get rid of the devils? But that
wasn’t important. What was important was that after a perilous journey and great hardship, she was stuck outside the door of the only man who could free her father. She was so close to her goal. She brushed all other concerns aside.

  A clanking of the latch mechanism, and the door cracked open. It was the bald, uniformed man with the huffing bellows laugh whom Lizbet had spoken to when she came to the Palace the first time. Bellows eyed her up and down. “I’ve seen you before,” he said. “Huh. You’re no witch, you’re the fake magician’s daughter. Fake father, fake daughter.” He tried to slam the door, but Lizbet had stuck her foot in the opening.

  “Move your foot, little girl, or I’ll crush it,” he said. He glared at her.

  “You can’t crush it,” Lizbet said. “It’s a witch’s foot of oak and strap iron. I told you.” As Bellows strained against the door, Lizbet said, “I’m half a witch, and this is Strix, who is a witch from top to bottom, and this is Fudge, a talking goblin—”

  Fudge bowed, as much as his bulging stomach would allow. “I bid you good morrow, officer, and wish you godspeed in the punctilious performance of your constabulary duties.” Bellows stared at him, his mouth gaping open. His grip on the door relaxed.

  “—a talking goblin who the Margrave would like very much to meet, because he has an important book in his memory that the Margrave has been seeking, and as you can tell, we have traversed Abalia without having been molested by the devils, which demonstrates that we have power over them, so please take us to the Margrave, as soon as you can. Please.” Lizbet paused for breath.

  Bellows hesitated. Lizbet decided she might not get a better chance than this. She put her shoulder against the door, shoved it open before Bellows could react, and pushed her way past him into the Palace receiving room. Fudge followed, tottering to and fro as he struggled to carry the unabridged dictionary. Strix came behind. “Thanks so much,” Lizbet said to Bellows. She headed for the stairs.

  “What did I tell you last time?” Bellows roared. “Hans! Heinz! Hrothgar! Helmuth! Herzl! Heimlich!”