The Autumn Castle

by Kim Wilkins

  Mayfridh screamed, Jude tried to move in front of her, but Mandy grabbed his collar and pushed him aside, sending him pitching down the stairs. In an uncannily swift movement he had Mayfridh by the hair, dragging her up toward him. She felt Gerda’s hand around her ankles, but then Mandy turned and with a grunt, kicked Gerda in the stomach. He pulled Mayfridh in with him and threw her on the floor. She struggled to her feet, but he kicked her again. Gerda was still trying to enter the room, but Mandy pulled himself up tall and Mayfridh realized with horror that he had a spell sitting on his palm.

  “Over and out!” he shouted, and it was Hexebart’s voice that emerged from his eel-like lips. Gerda pitched down the stairs after Jude.

  Mayfridh heard the door slam. She looked around frantically for Hexebart, but soon realized she was alone in the boning room with Mandy. The roar of the engine that drove the vat drowned out her frantic heartbeat.

  “Did you like my use of faery magic?” Mandy said, now speaking in his own voice. “That hag you had in the dungeons has been very supportive of my plans. Though I hope I won’t have to cut my own hands off.” He sniffed his hand and wrinkled his nose in distaste.

  Mayfridh felt her whole body crumble from the inside. So Hexebart had been tricking her. Of course. But she hadn’t thought the witch would sink as low as helping Mandy murder her. She tried to sit up, but Mandy kicked her hard in the side. Her breath flew out of her.

  “Don’t try to escape. I’m not going to let you escape.”

  With shaking fingers, she attempted to reach the pocket that held the spells, but he saw her move and in an instant was on the floor, kneeling on her ribs and pinning her hands up above her head. “I’m not a fool,” he spat. “I can’t stand to think for a moment that you believed you might get away. I’m inexorable and unstoppable. Tonight, I will finish my sculpture.” He reached for a rope that lay coiled near the feet of his awful sculpture, tied her hands together, and then tied them to the gleaming ankles of his Bone Wife so that her fingers curved onto the smooth white surface.

  Under the yellow-bright light, with the rumble of the motor and the hiss and spit of the vat nearby, Mayfridh’s perception shifted into the tunnel vision of panic. Details leapt out at her: the tiny hairs of wool on Mandy’s pullover; the stubble on his ruddy chin; a rough knot in the floorboards she lay on. She tried to calm her breathing so the details wouldn’t overwhelm her and make her black out, but suddenly everything did black out, although not in her mind. Fabiyan and Pete had found the fuse box.

  “What the—?” Mandy bellowed. His voice was excruciatingly loud in the sudden quiet that followed the vat turning off. The liquid still spat softly inside it.

  Mayfridh allowed herself a moment of hope, that somehow Mandy’s plans would be thwarted by the blackout. Then he turned and Mayfridh noticed something glowing in his hand. Another spell. The only light in the room, it threw his face into evil shadows.

  “I can see well enough by this light,” he said, “until I can find a candle. The vat is hot enough, and I’ll have you in it soon.” He held up the spell for her to see. “Hexebart wove this for me.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a way for me to get everything I need from you before I kill you.”

  Mayfridh tortured her mind trying to imagine what the spell would do. “Hexebart isn’t to be trusted.”

  “Not by you, she’s not.” Mandy laughed. “As to whether I can trust her, well, it seems I’ve done all right so far. Let’s get on with it, shall we?” He leaned close and held the spell on his palm, ready to work Hexebart’s traitorous magic.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Christine waited, her back pinning the door open, when shrieks and thumps above alerted her that everything had gone wrong. As she moved to peer up the stairwell, Jude tumbled into her, knocking her against the threshold. An agonizing bolt of pain shuddered down her spine.

  “Mandy!” he gasped, struggling to his feet, just as Gerda thudded into him, knocking him to the floor.

  At the mention of Mandy’s name, Christine instinctively recoiled. Too late she saw the door begin to move. She tried to jam her shoulder against it, but it slammed shut, shaking her whole body with a violence that echoed in her bones.

  Jude climbed to his feet and pounded on the door. “Open this up, Mandy. Open it immediately or I’ll call the police.”

  “I doubt he can hear you,” Gerda said, standing with a theatrical wince. “It’s all soundproofed.”

  Christine tried the door. All the locks had snapped back into place. “Maybe we should call the police,” she said. “They might be able to stop him before he kills her.”

  “He won’t kill her just yet.” A voice from behind them.

  Gerda and Jude gasped. Christine turned gingerly. Hexebart stood two paces away with a satisfied smile on her face.

  “I thought—” Christine started.

  “Hexebart gave Immanuel her voice for a little while,” the witch said. “Clever? You all thought it was me.”

  “What have you done?” Jude demanded. “He’s going to kill her.”

  “Oh, pish!” said Hexebart with a dismissive wave. “I have a scheme. Let me at the door.” She moved toward the door, but Jude stood in her way.

  “What are you up to?” he said.

  “Out of my way.”

  Jude grabbed her arm roughly. “Gerda, get her other arm.”

  “I don’t like you, boy,” Hexebart said, trying to twist out of his grasp. “Get out of my way.”

  At that moment, the lights went out and they were all plunged into darkness. Then three lights came on in the room. Gerda’s and Jude’s flashlights, and a ball of light between Hexebart’s hands. She had escaped Jude’s grasp.

  “Now stay away from me,” Hexebart said. Her haggard face was thrown into shadowy relief by the dim lights. “Let me open the door. The queen needs our help, you know, and you can’t do anything without me.”

  Jude advanced on the witch again, and she flung out her arm and cast the spell. He staggered back, his arm in front of his eyes, a cry of pain on his lips.

  “Jude?” Christine shrieked.

  “I can’t see a thing. She’s sent me blind.”

  Gerda backed away.

  “Now, let Hexebart do her work. Stupid Real World people.”

  Christine had an arm around Jude, grabbed his flashlight, and tried to peer into his eyes. “Can you see anything? Anything at all?”

  “I . . . maybe. I think I can see the light. Actually, I think it’s coming back already. There you are.” He touched her face tenderly, and for a moment all her anger toward him dissolved.

  “Mayfridh’s protection spell must have helped.”

  Gerda’s gasp of horror made her turn back to Hexebart. The witch’s index finger had become as long and thin as a knitting needle. She inserted the end into each lock individually and they all snapped open.

  “Come,” the witch said, standing back, “Hexebart should very much like you all to see what she has planned for the man who killed the queen.”

  It was a scene from a nightmare. In the almost-black space of the boning room, while her hands were tied and the vat waited hot and poisonous nearby, Mayfridh watched Mandy loom over her with a sneer. Gently he dropped the spell onto her wrists and said, “Extract,” then sat back on his haunches to watch.

  Extract? What diabolical enchantment had Hexebart made for him? Was it the kind of extraction spell that took a faery’s soul and essence for use in black magic? She had heard of such spells, but had no idea that Hexebart’s ability extended so far or her hatred extended so deep. Frantically, she fought against the ropes, kicked out at Mandy. He easily grabbed her ankles and pinned them down.

  “Frightened?” he asked.

  “What have you done to me?” Then, she felt it. A slow, sweet energy moving into her fingers and hands, coursing down her wrists and into her torso. Something familiar and comforting about it, a feeling of being safe and protected and—

/>   Jasper! She gasped as two realizations fought for her attention. The first: royal magic was pouring into her, Jasper’s royal magic. She finally knew what had happened to her parents. Mandy had killed them for his sculpture. And this explained the second realization: Hexebart was helping her. At last the hag believed Mayfridh had nothing to do with her parents’ disappearance.

  Mandy laughed when she gasped. “Does it hurt to lose your magic?”

  The spell extinguished, the room was now pitch-black. Mayfridh was grateful that Mandy couldn’t read the relief on her face. She didn’t answer, but began to twitch her fingers together to make the magic work and untie the ropes. They slid off her hands and onto the floor. Still she kept her fingers on the ankles of the statue, reclaiming every last drop of her father’s magic.

  “I’ll light a few candles,” Mandy said, and his voice came from across the room. She hadn’t sensed him move. “I’ll need to see where your throat is if I’m going to slit it accurately.”

  The flow of magic slowed. Mayfridh could feel it in her heart now, pumping around with the blood. It left her temporarily breathless. Jasper’s magic was only a tributary of Liesebet’s, less than a tenth as powerful, but it weighed in her heart and her chest like the burden of a nation. A light flickered on the other side of the room and Mandy’s figure appeared in the dark, silhouetted by a candle. She maintained her position, pretending she was still tied and helpless. What to do now? She was a novice at this. She had only ever used spells spun by Hexebart or used leftover magic in her fingers. Where to start in trying to overcome Mandy? He had the speed and strength of a beast, and a boiling vat of poison and acid stood only a few feet away.

  While she was deliberating, the sound of locks popping echoed up the stairs. Mandy’s eyebrows drew down and his head turned in that direction. In the dark, Hexebart appeared at the top of the stairs, with Jude, Gerda, and Christine hovering behind her.

  “What’s this, Hexebart?” Mandy said.

  “Immanuel, you have been very wicked.”

  Instinctively, Mayfridh drew away from the statue and curled up in a corner of the room. Mandy didn’t see her move; he was preoccupied with Hexebart.

  “Wicked?” he said. “What do you call breaking into my private space just as I’m about to kill . . .” He turned to where he’d left Mayfridh, saw she wasn’t there, and turned back to Hexebart, understanding coloring his gaze.

  For a few long seconds Mandy and Hexebart locked eyes across the dimly lit room. Mayfridh held her breath, wondering which of them would pounce first. In the candlelight, she saw Mandy’s shoulders and back tense. She was about to call out, but Hexebart’s left hand shot up, releasing a bright spell from her fingers. It was too far off target. Its trajectory was nowhere near Mandy, and Mayfridh wondered how Hexebart could have aimed so poorly.

  Then the spell landed on the Bone Wife. The gleaming sculpture erupted with bright light and Mandy’s eyes bulged with horror.

  “What have you done? What have you done?”

  The light blazed once and then sucked into the bones. The sculpture’s feet began to twitch.

  “She wants to dance with you, Immanuel,” Hexebart said.

  Mandy approached the sculpture with frantic hands reaching for her curves. “What have you done to her?”

  The twitching turned into shuddering. The left leg went up, then down. The right leg went up, then down. The left leg kicked, the right leg kicked. Mandy backed away.

  “Come, Immanuel, dance with your beautiful wife,” Hexebart said, cackling heartily.

  The Bone Wife jumped—once, twice—then began to spin, dance, kick, jump, more and more frantically, advancing on Mandy.

  “Stop it!” he shouted. “Stop it! I command you to stop it!”

  This only made Hexebart laugh louder. Mandy turned and stalked toward her. Christine, Jude, and Gerda scurried out from behind the witch and took refuge in the corners. Hexebart was doubled over with laughter and hadn’t seen Mandy’s sudden approach.

  “Hexebart!” Mayfridh shouted, scrambling to her feet. “Look out!”

  The Bone Wife’s feet clattered on the floor, spinning madly. Hexebart looked up in time to see Mandy’s hands closing in on her. She tried to duck sideways; Mandy hunted her, the Bone Wife trailing them.

  “Ha, ha, this way, this way!” Hexebart cried with glee.

  Mayfridh realized in horror that she was leading Mandy toward the vat. “Be careful,” she called.

  Hexebart paused; Mandy stopped in front of her, his shoulders tensed to pounce.

  “Dance, dolly, dance!” Hexebart cried.

  The Bone Wife jumped and spun at Hexebart’s words, then curled her left leg, and released it in a devastatingly powerful kick. It thudded into Mandy’s flesh behind, knocking him sideways and up, into the side of the vat. He turned, enraged. Kick, kick. The Bone Wife’s feet contacted with his jaw, knocking him over, balancing him on the edge of the vat. A look of horror crossed his face and his arms flailed out frantically. Kick, kick. This time she got him in the chest, knocking breath from his lungs. He began to overbalance, to fall backward. He screamed once, his hand shot out and caught Hexebart by the neck.

  “No,” Mayfridh shrieked, running toward them. Hexebart had the royal magic. Mayfridh had to get her home safely. “No. Hexebart!”

  Splash! They both disappeared into the vat.

  “No!” Mayfridh shrieked again, narrowly avoiding the wash of hot toxins. She could see nothing in the semidark but the boiling surface of the water. The Bone Wife still clattered and danced behind her, its frantic pace intensifying.

  Suddenly, a hand thrust up out of the fluid. Hexebart’s gnarled fingers, half eaten by the acid bath, reached out to her. Mayfridh braced herself against the vat and grabbed the witch’s hand. A sweet rush of feeling began to flow from Hexebart’s fingers to Mayfridh’s own. The royal magic, Liesebet’s magic, at last being passed to her. Hexebart knew there was little time and was pumping out the magic too fast. Mayfridh felt her veins might explode as the weight and pressure began to intensify, to crowd her organs and her mind. The responsibility was overwhelming. A groaning began in her ears; her own voice. Then she realized the hand she was holding was no longer attached to a body, that Hexebart was gone and the magic was transferred. A loud bang sounded behind her. Something sharp hit her in the back of the head, but she barely felt it. The devastating weight of the magic was already pulling her down. She dropped Hexebart’s hand and collapsed, the floor slamming into her body.

  Christine barely had time to register what Mayfridh was doing—she seemed dangerously close to the vat and was clearly losing consciousness—when the mad clatter of the Bone Wife’s feet reached a crescendo and she began to shake into pieces. First one foot flew off, then the other. Chips of bone missiled through the air, and a violent shuddering signaled her imminent detonation. From across the room she heard Jude call, “Get down!” Christine covered her head with her arms and skidded to the floor, cowering against the wall as the sculpture blew into fragments, sending bone shards in all directions.

  A quiet descended, and Christine realized she was sitting on something sharp. She supposed it to be a chip of the sculpture. She pulled it out from underneath her and held it in front of the flashlight beam.

  Not a chip of bone, a ring. Her engagement ring. Mandy must have cast it in the corner when he’d brought her hand here. She gazed at it in the beam of the flashlight, then remembered Mayfridh near the vat and looked up to see what had become of her.

  Mayfridh lay on the floor, breathing shallowly, but conscious, her eyes open. Gazing into Jude’s eyes. He crouched over her, smoothing her hair away from her face.

  Christine felt her bottom jaw tremble. She clutched the ring so hard it cut into her palm. A sob stabbed at her throat. Her hair spilled over her fingers as her head dropped into her hands, and she cried quietly in her corner, alone.

  The rain was easing outside as Christine, Mayfridh, Jude, Gerda, and Pete waited in Ju
de’s apartment for the lights to come back on. Gerda hunched over Mandy’s memoir by candlelight, flicking through the last pages, while Mayfridh explained to Jude and Pete how Hexebart had finally given back the royal magic. Christine sat, numb, on the sofa. With a weary sigh, Mayfridh sat next to her. An uneasy stiffness filled the space between their bodies. There was a hum and the lights blazed back to life. A few moments later, Fabiyan bounded up the stairs and into the apartment.

  “I will go upstairs in little while and switch off boiler,” he said, closing the door behind him.

  “No hurry,” Gerda said. “We’d better make sure Mandy’s good and dead.” She held up the notebook. “I don’t know if they’ll ever find his remains, but I think we’re safe if they do.”

  “Why’s that?” Pete asked.

  “The last line he wrote: ‘Farewell. I go to a better place.’ It sounds like a suicide line. That, along with all the ramble about faeries, should well and truly divert suspicion away from a cabal of witless artists like us.” She placed the book carefully on the coffee table. “I feel completely overwhelmed.”

  “Is there any other way to feel after you’ve watched a witch and a faery hunter boiled alive in a vat?” Pete said. “Mayfridh, will your believe spell wear off and make us all go nuts?”

  “I don’t think so. I think once you’ve believed, you’ll always believe.”

  “Are you going to go home?” Jude asked Gerda.

  “To Stockholm? Indeed. As soon as I can get a flight. What about the rest of you?”

  “I have already booked train for day after tomorrow,” Fabiyan said.

  “I’m going to hang out at the airport until they find me a seat,” Pete said. “Jude? You and Christine missed your flight on Sunday, will you still . . .”

  Jude shrugged. “I’m not hanging around here.”

  They all turned to Mayfridh.

  “And you, Mayfridh?” Christine asked. “When do you have to leave?”