Half-Witch

by John Schoffstall

  Lizbet had hoped that the Margrave, in his excitement over having his soul book back, had forgotten the ruse she used to gain an audience with him. But he hadn’t.

  “Lizbet,” Wolftrow said. His gaze fixed on hers. His voice was stern, confident, and respectful. It was a voice that made you want to square your shoulders and salute. “Lizbet. I believe that if any mortal can find a way to chase off the devils, it is you. You are a remarkable young woman. In crossing the Montagnes, overcoming untold dangers, burgling the stronghold of a witch prince, and returning safely, you have accomplished something no one else has, no one else could have. You have gifts of courage and imagination beyond any other of your sex. If anyone can chase the devils from Abalia, I truly believe it is you.”

  Hearing this, charmed, almost hypnotized by the Margrave’s voice, Lizbet wanted believe he was right.

  “Sometimes a woman can succeed where a man cannot,” Wolftrow said. “Remember Joan of Arc, who chased an invading army of British shopkeepers off our continent?”

  “But they burned Joan at the stake,” Lizbet complained.

  “And she is in Heaven now, among the saints.”

  Lizbet hoped that Belial and the devils weren’t giving St. Joan a hard time. Heaven might not be a safe destination any longer. “You know something?” she said. “You remind me of God.” Like God, the Margrave had a gift for making you want to believe him, and follow him. His voice, his gaze, the little compliments he paid you—he made you fall in love with him, after a fashion. But also like God, the Margrave was full of advice that steered Lizbet toward a fate that was not likely to turn out well for her.

  But she could not bring herself to refuse him.

  “Thank you, Lizbet,” Wolftrow said. “That’s quite a compliment.”

  It hadn’t been entirely a compliment, but Lizbet decided not to clarify it for him.

  So ridding Abalia of its devils was the only way she was going to get her father out of prison. But how on earth was she to do that?

  Chapter 24

  No sooner had Lizbet and Strix left the Palace than they heard the clip-clop of hooves on the cobblestones. A devil came toward them down the avenue. It had the head of a goat, the trunk of a goat, the legs of a goat—in fact, it looked very much like a goat, if goats were eight feet tall, entirely scarlet, and walked on their hind legs. A lolling tongue sprawled out of its mouth. It was almost upon them. Lizbet took off her bandoleer and swung it in the air.

  The goat-devil squealed, threw up its forelegs as if to protect itself, and stumbled off, bleating curses.

  “There,” Strix said. “You’ve driven off one devil. Only hundreds more to go.”

  “Except he hasn’t been ‘driven off’ at all,” Lizbet said. “He just went around a corner. Oh, Strix, how am I supposed to drive hundreds of devils out of Abalia?”

  “Find someone who knows how to drive out devils,” Strix said. “Do whatever he does.”

  “But there isn’t anyone who drives out—wait. Maybe there is.”

  “Really? I thought I was making a joke.”

  “Christ drove out devils,” Lizbet said. “A couple of times, in the Gospels. But He’s on the run from the devils right now. We can’t go over to His house and quiz Him on His technique.”

  Wait, she thought. Christ did have a “house,” so to speak.

  She hadn’t been to church in a long, long time.

  It wasn’t safe to go to the Cathedral of St. Dessicata. Someone there might recognize her as the girl who stole the hosts. After a while wandering through the streets, Lizbet and Strix found a humble little chapel in a fauberg half a mile from the Margrave’s Palace. A few devils loitered outside, heaving paving stones at its stained-glass windows.

  Strix refused to enter. “I heard of a witch who went into a church once. She turned to stone. The priest put her in his garden, plumbed her with lead pipe, and used her as a fountain. I’m not going in there.” She gave Lizbet a worried look. “I’m not all that sure it’s safe for you anymore.”

  “If I start getting stiff in the legs, I’ll run out fast,” Lizbet promised her.

  The door was barred, but after Lizbet banged vigorously on it, a young priest opened it a crack, and she convinced him to let her inside.

  “I’d like to take Holy Communion,” she told him.

  The priest let her in, but shook his head sadly. “There is no Communion, child. We have no hosts. Communion wafers cannot be consecrated, even by the Bishop.” Lizbet remembered overhearing a priest in the Margrave’s office saying that.

  The moment Lizbet stepped inside the little church, her soul was at ease. The nave was high and narrow, and full of inviting dark recesses. A ray of light through the broken rose window struck the altarpiece, and its gilding glittered. Lizbet breathed deeply of the cool air. In a rush, memories of other churches came back to her. Soaring hymns, hours of quiet reverie, glowing stained-glass stories of the gospels, long, personal talks with God. In Lizbet’s unsettled, lonely childhood, a church had always been a place of familiarity and comfort. She said, “At least the devils are afraid to come in here.”

  The priest shook his head again. “The devils are stopped by a stout wooden door,” he said. “When the devils first appeared, we thought they wouldn’t dare enter a church. But they came right in. They emptied their bowels upon the altar. They passed water on the floor. They painted tar on the portraits of the Virgin.” He was near to tears. “The Church has lost all its power. God has abandoned us. Hell rules the universe.”

  Hearing this, Lizbet fought down anger. The devils had despoiled even this humble little church, just out of meanness. She would put them down. She wanted to put them down. “Even if I can’t have Communion, I’m going to pray, anyway,” she told the young priest.

  She slipped into a pew and knelt. She knit her fingers and rested her forehead on her clasped hands. She whispered all the prayers she could remember. Then she prayed in her own words, for herself, her father, the Margrave, the Pixie Queen, all the priests and the Bishop, all the people of Abalia, and of the Holy Roman Empire, and in all the world. She prayed for Strix, and Fudge, and the earth witches and the goblins, even though none of them would approve. She prayed for Griffon and Cupido because she had promised to, and for the Pope of Storms and Mrs. Woodcot. She prayed as hard as she could. “What can I do?” she asked silently. “How can I get my father free? The devils are desecrating Your churches. The Margrave is counting on me to drive them out, but I don’t know how.”

  It wasn’t the same without the dry and starchy host melting on her tongue. There was no answer. The gates of Heaven were closed.

  But every silence has its voices. A breeze whispered through the broken stained-glass windows. A dry oak leaf scratched across the floor. A cricket beneath a kneeler chirped its insect blessing. The distant murmur of a priest, a half-heard shout from outside. As it had been when Lizbet lay beneath her dress full of rustling pieces of Strix, and dreamed she heard Strix’s voice whispering to her, so she now imagined that all the church’s faint and fitful sounds joined together like scraps of cloth in a crazy quilt. And within that maze of rustles and whispers, a distant voice, more imagined, more wished for, than heard:

  . . . elizabeth . . .

  It was the voice not of God the Father, but of Christ. She listened. She didn’t dare reply.

  . . . elizabeth . . . dear child. my blessings on you, such poor blessings as i can give. i would gladly help you, but i cannot even help myself. i am in hiding, dear heart.

  o, elizabeth, have mercy on us.

  But that was how mortals prayed: Oh, Lord, have mercy on us.

  “Jesus?”

  . . . have pity on us . . .

  Lizbet’s heart was about to break.

  “Jesus,” she prayed. “I have to banish all the devils from Abalia. I don’t know how.”

  Silen
ce.

  Lizbet’s heart squeezed painfully in her chest. Her teeth chattered. Had she broken the spell?

  A still, distant voice, like a voice imagined in the patter of rain:

  . . . only christ can banish devils . . .

  And that was all. No matter how long she waited, no matter how hard she prayed, everything else was silence.

  Strix was waiting outside the church door. “That took long enough,” she said. “Did you have a nice pray?”

  “I knew the answer all along,” Lizbet said. There was wonder in her voice, but also fear. “Only Christ can banish devils. We need Christ.”

  “You said that already. We don’t have one.”

  “We’ll make one.”

  Strix raised an eyebrow. “Easier said than done?”

  “I suppose everything is easier said than done,” Lizbet said. “You can tell me afterward whether it was easy. Because you’re going to do it.”

  “I’m going to do what?”

  “Let’s go,” Lizbet said, taking Strix by the hand and dragging her down the street. “We need to find a blacksmith shop.”

  “We’re going to make a giant, powerful, iron Christ?”

  “No,” Lizbet said. “A small, weak, fleshy Christ. That looks a lot like me.”

  Blacksmithing was a common occupation. They found a smithy within two blocks of the church. The shop was empty, the hearth cold. Like the rest of Abalia, the smith and his ’prentices were hiding from the devils, or had fled the town. Lizbet wrinkled up her nose. Everything was soot and grime. The floor was cinders underfoot.

  She searched through the blacksmith’s tools until she found what she was looking for: iron pincers. On the smithy’s walls, different sizes hung from hooks. Huge pincers that would take both a man’s fists to hold, all the way down to tiny ones with which the blacksmith might have wrought a delicate brass filigree for a lady’s vanity table. It was these tiniest pincers that Lizbet picked. They were cold to the touch, and left traces of soot on her fingers. Lizbet shivered, thinking about what was next. She handed them to Strix.

  Strix accepted them doubtfully. Lizbet sorted through the cartridges in the Outlaw’s bandoleer until she found the one she was looking for. She pried back the cardboard flaps over its open end. Inside, tiny blue-white filaments of Christ’s divine nature glowed in the darkness. She dropped the bandoleer on the floor and handed the cartridge to Strix.

  Strix retreated an inch. “Ew.”

  “Take it,” Lizbet insisted. “Don’t touch what’s inside. It might burn you. Grab it with the pincers instead.”

  Strix understood at last. Her expression softened. For the first time ever, Lizbet thought she looked gentle. She took Lizbet’s hand. “You really want me to do this?” she asked.

  Lizbet squeezed Strix’s hand. She forced herself to nod.

  “No one wants this,” Strix said. “No one ever wants to be better or worse than they already are.”

  “I don’t want it,” Lizbet said. “I’m scared of it. I’m scared it won’t work. I’m scared I’ll get hurt. I’m scared you’ll get hurt. I’m scared it’s wrong, and I’ll go to Hell because of it, although with the devils in charge of everything, I’m honestly not sure Heaven would be much different.

  “But whatever the danger is, I still need to put down the devils. It’s the last thing I have to do, to get my father free. After everything I’ve gone through, I’m not going to stop now.”

  On a grimy benchtop, Lizbet cleared away a space, and laid her body down. “Strix,” she said, “it’s time.” She stared up into Strix’s mismatched brown eyes. With her lips more than her voice, she said, “Do it.”

  Strix’s face hovered above her. The glowing strands of Christ’s divine nature, held in the black iron pincers, approached Lizbet’s nose. She pushed her palms down against the workbench, trying to hold her body still, although all her flesh was shaking. Her body arched with fear and apprehension. Her nose felt strange, full, as Strix’s hand slid in. There was a twinge of pain, and she jerked. “There, there,” Strix said. “There, there.”

  Something touched the back of Lizbet’s throat, and she wanted to cough. Tickling sensations deep in her chest. She realized Strix had her entire arm in her nose, up to the shoulder. It should have been terrifying, but the longer it went on, the less frightening it became. Strix’s face, hovering inches from hers in an expression of intense concentration, was comforting.

  Movement, deep within her. Turning, squeezing, pushing, rolling, aching. Then expanding, as if a white bird had spread its wings inside her. Lizbet gasped.

  “It’s done,” Strix said. With careful slowness, she removed her arm from inside Lizbet.

  Lizbet sat up and shook her shoulders. Strix eyed her cautiously. “How is it?” she asked. “How do you feel?”

  “I feel . . . ,” Lizbet said. “I feel . . . lighthearted.”

  “Lighthearted?”

  “Fearless. I feel . . .” She shook herself again. She allowed herself to smile. “I feel as if everything is going to work out. As if, at the end of all things, all wrongs will be fixed, so there’s nothing ever to be scared of. I think maybe it’s the first time I’ve really felt that way.”

  Then the weight of all the world descended upon Lizbet, crushing her.

  She screamed. She fell back onto the workbench, thrashing, her eyes wide with horror. Strix bent over her. “Lizbet! Lizbet! What is it? What happened? Did I do something wrong? Lizbet! What is it? Stop it, you’ll hurt yourself. Lizbet!”

  Strix had knotted into Lizbet’s heart a tiny portion of Christ’s divine nature. The sins of mankind that Christ was born to bear had descended upon Lizbet’s own small shoulders.

  Every cruel word, every lie. Every blow struck in anger, every burrowing maggot jealousy. Every murder, every theft, every war, every advantage taken of the weak by the strong. Every coldness where there should have been love. Every distance where there should have been closeness. Every stinginess where there should have been generosity of purse or spirit.

  Every unkindness.

  Large and small, mankind’s flaws and crimes heaped themselves on top of Lizbet in that moment. Heavy as mountains, they crushed her. They chattered in a myriad of voices, some tiny, some roaring, endlessly talking about themselves. Recriminations, guilts unexpunged, petty grievances, resentment, smugness: a swarm of dirty, biting flies.

  Lizbet struggled, trying to get away. Her body thrashed back and forth, her hands banged on the workbench, her head bounced up and down until the back of her scalp was bloody.

  Strix held her, pleading with her to stop, trying to restrain Lizbet’s twisting limbs and body, and cushion her head.

  In all that dark night of guilt and sin and crime that had engulfed Lizbet, Strix’s touch was her only comfort.

  It came to Lizbet that she bore the merest tiny threads of divinity in her heart. If this was what came of having the barest trace of Christ’s nature, what monstrously greater burden must Christ Himself have borne?

  Yet Christ had carried that terrible weight without resentment or complaint—He who had been but a man born of woman Himself. Why couldn’t Lizbet bear her own, far lesser burden, here, and now?

  “Lizbet!”

  Strix’s voice called her back to the world.

  Lizbet stopped thrashing. Her flesh went limp. “Are you okay?” Strix asked. She released Lizbet, reluctantly.

  As if she were lifting the weight of mountains, Lizbet pushed herself up on her elbows. She forced her breathing to slow.

  She swung her legs over the edge of the workbench and slid off to stand, trembling, on the cinder floor. “Are you okay?” Strix asked again.

  “No,” Lizbet said. “Not really.” Every fiber of her wanted to fail, to fall, to crumple to the ground in despair, crushed by the sins of the world.

  Instead, s
he lifted one shaking foot and took a step. Then she took another. Strix hovered over her, one hand at Lizbet’s elbow, another at her back.

  The Mussulmen say, “Take one step toward God, and God will take two steps toward you.” Perhaps the white bird within Lizbet had been waiting for her to shoulder her share of the world’s sins without complaint. Waiting for her to rise and move, and strive her best to do what needed to be done.

  The white bird spread its wings. It spoke, with a woman’s sweet voice: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

  Lizbet stood. Her feet and legs stopped shaking. She turned and looked Strix in the eye. “Hold my hand,” she said.

  Strix came from outside humanity, uncreated by God, uninvolved in the endless mortal cycle of sin and guilt and redemption. Her laws were different laws. Whoever judged her, it was not God. Holding Strix’s hand gave Lizbet strength. Like the white bird within, Strix’s touch called to Lizbet from a place of certainty, beyond the boiling seas of sin and error through which she, and all humanity, plunged and foundered.

  The Holy Spirit within her, the witch by her side, Christ Lizbet stepped forth into the world to do battle with the armies of Hell.

  Chapter 25

  “It shouldn’t be hard to find a devil,” Lizbet said. She and Strix walked hand in hand, down the street, away from the smithy.

  Strix looked at her anxiously. “Maybe you should start with just a little devil.”

  But before they could find a devil, a devil found them. An eight-foot-tall scarlet goat clip-clopped around a corner on its hind legs. It held a whip in one cloven hoof. It licked its lips. “What have we here?” it bleated. “Two sweet little girlies. Some fun!” It cracked its whip. The sound echoed like a musket-shot off the stone buildings.

  Lizbet strode forward, pulling Strix after her.

  The goat-devil halted. “Who are you?” it bleated. “Not fair! You stink of Heaven!” It turned, and its hooves clattered off.