Witchy Winter

by D. J. Butler

  The sack wasn’t leather, but skin; the woman’s features, a proud Irish face with bright yellow hair, stared up at him from the sack, with bile and gall oozing through the tightly shut eyelids.

  His horses neighed sharply.

  Something hit Nathaniel from behind.

  He struck the skin-sack of the woman’s grief and missteps and its bulk knocked him sideways. Nathaniel rolled across rocky ground, watching the stars overhead whirl, and struggled to his feet, drum held before him like a shield or a weapon.

  “Wiindigoo!” he cried.

  The wiindigoo looked like a man from the Covenant Tract. He was narrow-faced and tall beneath a black peaked hat. His cloak was a starless abyss that sucked in light, and his eyes were gaping tunnels that led to the same bottomless void.

  Serpentspawn! the wiindigoo hissed back.

  Nathaniel touched the skin of his drum, tapping a soft pattern like spring rain. He felt the horses beneath him and took courage.

  “No,” he said. “I’m no child of Wisdom.”

  Liar! The wiindigoo stood to his full height, and suddenly he was as tall as the world-axle, and the black of his cloak hid the stars. You’re the get of the half-cocked rider of the Missouri on his half-witted Penn slattern. You’re mixed-blood Fey and child of Eve, an abomination, and I’ve come for you!

  Something in the rage-filled words rang true.

  “No,” Nathaniel said again. “What I was, I am no longer. I’ve died in the Pit of Heaven and been made anew. I owe you nothing, wiindigoo.”

  Stop calling me that! The wiindigoo swept an arm through his own cloak, gathering up infinite night, and slammed his black arm into Nathaniel.

  Nathaniel felt his iron bones bend as all the breath was pummeled from his lungs. He fell back, knocked from his horse, and tumbled, not earthward, for earth wasn’t beneath him, but toward the infinite void—

  but caught himself at the last moment on the lip of his drum.

  He drummed rain again, his horses neighed, and Nathaniel galloped away.

  The wiindigoo roared behind him as Nathaniel rode back up the mountain to the windy plain, but couldn’t follow. Before the curing barn disappeared entirely, Nathaniel saw the wiindigoo turn his attention back to the walls of white flame, hurtling the dark emptiness of his cloak against the light.

  Nathaniel reached the starlit plain and thought.

  The wiindigoo was too powerful for him.

  What about the witch? The witch who’d had Nathaniel’s own face, the red-haired cauldron-witch in the pit of giants where Nathaniel had been torn apart and rebuilt. Might she be an ally?

  Nathaniel listened for the witch.

  He heard many hungry voices on the winds. Voices filled with fear, and others with hatred.

  Somewhere far away, at the beginning of an especially strong gust, he heard the cry of a heron that shook him to his iron bones.

  Elsewhere, a shrill laugh that sounded like shattering glass, and brought with it the sound of moldering bones.

  An eagle’s cry with sad tones in it, and Nathaniel realized he was hearing the Earl of Johnsland.

  Then he found the witch’s voice. ~Cal,~ the witch said. ~I reckon this is it for me. I tried, and I failed.~

  Nathaniel followed the wind that bore that voice. It took him across leagues of grassland and into a shallow depression through which flowed a trickle of a creek. When the stream dropped sharply downhill, Nathaniel knew he was close, and in a circle of short hills he found her.

  The hills were hollow, with doorways and windows carved into their sides. Some had small buildings on their peaks. Most were squarish, and all but one were built upon a foundation of stars, and specifically upon the Loon.

  The remaining hill was built upon the sun, and therefore pointed a different direction than the others. A gulf separated that hill from the others, a ravine from which rose a foul-smelling smoke. On that hill stood a woman beside a tree with a serpent wound around it and a spring bubbling from its roots. Somehow, the woman, the tree, the spring, and the snake were all the same being.

  And She was ancient, and Her face radiated so much loneliness it hurt.

  Nathaniel looked away.

  The witch sat inside a hill, surrounded by a sheet of something that shone like glass. Nathaniel knew her face, which looked strikingly like the face he saw when he looked in the mirror, even though the witch’s red hair was gone, replaced with short, black hair. She sat with a young man who did have long red locks, whose heart sang the most guileless song Nathaniel had ever heard, and whose face was glum.

  ~What you mean, Sarah?~ the young man asked.

  “Today is the solstice. Today at dawn all the candidates gather and hope the goddess chooses one of ’em. I had a plan with Alzbieta to sneak in, but it looks like she changed her mind. I ain’t sure quite how this is supposed to work, but I git the feelin’ She ain’t gonna choose me, locked up in here.”

  Nathaniel reached out to touch the surrounding sheet and it froze his fingertip, bringing up an instant blister.

  The witch looked up and met his eyes. “Who are you?”

  ~Who you talkin’ to, Sarah? Ain’t nobody here but you and me. Jerusalem, even when I finally git you alone, you go talkin’ to specters.~

  “It ain’t a specter, Calvin. Someone’s here.”

  ~Well, I can’t see him.~

  Nathaniel and the witch looked each other, and Nathaniel smiled.

  “I think he’s my brother.”

  “My name’s Nathaniel Chapel,” Nathaniel said.

  “Your name’s Nathaniel Elytharias Penn,” she answered. “My name is Sarah Elytharias Penn, and you and I are two out of a set of three triplets. I have many more things to tell you about yourself, and I expect you have a lot to tell me, too, but first, can you get me out of here?”

  The red-haired youth flung his arms skyward and sat, muttering to himself.

  “Your trap,” Nathaniel said. “Whatever it is that holds you burns me when I touch it.”

  “Silver,” she said. “I guess this might be a surprise to you, but you’re Firstborn.”

  “The wiindigoo told the truth.”

  “I don’t know what a wiindigoo is,” she said. “But you need to get someone in here who can open the silver door.”

  “Who?”

  “The man imprisoning me is named Maltres Korinn.” As the witch said the name, Nathaniel heard the man’s image and voice. “I don’t think he really wants to keep me locked up. Maybe you can persuade him.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “I’ll try.” Then a thought occurred to him. “The goddess whose chosen you hope to be…she’s a serpent?”

  Sarah stared. “She is the serpent, some would say. Why?”

  “She’s close. And she wants someone to come to her.”

  Sarah squinted at him. “Come to her? Where is she?”

  Nathaniel considered. “She’s on…the different hill. The one that doesn’t point at the northern sky.”

  Sarah stood. “I know it.”

  The red-haired youth stared at her. ~Sarah, what’s goin’ on?~

  “Shh!”

  “The hill’s broken,” Nathaniel said. “It should be connected to the others, but it isn’t. It needs something.”

  Sarah nodded. “Anything else?”

  Nathaniel shrugged. “She’s lonely.”

  Sarah looked sad. “She ain’t the only one.”

  “And I…I’m attacked.”

  Sarah looked startled. “Here?”

  Nathaniel laughed, wondering exactly what here meant in this conversation. “In Johnsland,” he said. “In an old tobacco-curing barn that belongs to the earl. A Yankee wiindigoo and…dead people.”

  “Did you say a Yankee wiindigoo?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is a wiindigoo another word for a wizard?”

  “I don’t know. I learned the word from a friend. It might be an Ojibwe word, like moccasin. Can you help?”

  “Mebbe,” Sarah said. “Y
es, I think so. Now go! Get Maltres Korinn in here, quick as e’er you can!”

  Nathaniel exited the prison-hill. He walked a short time among the hills, listening. He heard a wind full of the snarling of beasts, and another that clanked with the sound of metal coins, and a third that sang a sorrowful dirge of impossible love. Then he heard Korinn, and he followed the sound into another hill.

  How much time was passing in the curing barn in the Johnsland hills as Nathaniel did this? He hoped his friends lived.

  And if the wiindigoo broke into the barn before Nathaniel could return to his body, what then? Would his bear-self Makwa be able to keep him alive? Would Makwa defend Landon and the others?

  Maltres Korinn stood with two other people over the sickbed of a fourth person. All four of them looked afflicted.

  Maltres bore on his shoulders a yoke that bent him nearly double.

  The woman standing beside him had an imp sitting on her shoulder, whispering into her ear.

  The third standing figure was an old man, whose heart was laced with scars. As he shifted from one foot to another during the conversation, scars opened and bled, briefly.

  The man lying on the bed was empty. A shell. Nathaniel looked at him and frowned, and then noticed that a cord exited one of his ears and fell to the floor. Following the string, he crossed the floor and then looked out the hill’s window; the same man who lay on the sickbed an empty shell, with a cord flowing from his head, also stood outside the window, holding the far end of the same string.

  ~I beg you to release her,~ the woman said to Maltres Korinn. ~This was a terrible mistake.~

  The imp on her shoulder, a knotted ball of cartilage with a wide, tooth-filled grin and a greasy forked tongue, frowned and hissed into her ear. She brushed at it, trying to knock it away, and missed.

  ~The regent is correct,~ the old man said to her. ~This final night, and perhaps the goddess will choose a monarch for us again, and then that king or queen can decide what to do with Kyres’s daughter.~ A large scar on his heart split open and poured a stream of dark blood down his breast. ~Perhaps that queen will be you.~

  The imp whispered and the woman smiled, pleased. Then she frowned. ~Perhaps She’ll choose Kyres’s daughter as Her Beloved, and what then? The more I know of her, the more I see her father in her. She and I had…I wish you hadn’t done this, Uris.~

  They were talking about his sister Sarah.

  Nathaniel saw his way forward. Following the string back to its other end, he climbed inside the open mouth of the man lying on the bed. At his teeth Nathaniel met resistance, but he played a tattoo upon his drum and the horses carried him down the man’s throat and into his heart.

  Maltres Korinn shook his head. ~Then I’ll offer my queen my life.~

  Nathaniel found the bedridden man’s voice, and the strings that worked his limbs. He sat up. “Listen to me, all of you.”

  The woman spun about, her mouth gaping. ~Sherem!~

  Nathaniel shook his borrowed head. “My name is Makwa.”

  The old man balled his hands into fists. ~What sorcery is this?~

  “I ride old paths,” Nathaniel said. He caused his borrowed body to stand. “I don’t have a name for them. I follow voices down the winds that blow between the stars. What sorcery would you call that?”

  Maltres Korinn shook his head. ~I have no name for that, either.~

  The old man looked pale and shocked. ~What do you want, spirit?~

  “I come from your goddess,” Nathaniel said. This was almost true. “She’s trapped and lonely.”

  ~She requires a Beloved,~ the woman said. ~She hasn’t had one since Kyres Elytharias. Fifteen years.~

  There was that name again, Elytharias. Sarah had said it was her own name, and that Nathaniel rightfully bore it as well.

  He had much to learn.

  ~Fifteen years are the blink of an eye for a goddess,~ the old man said.

  ~And the blink of an eye is an eternity.~ The woman turned on the old man, fire in her stare. Her shoulder-imp nearly fell off, and clung to her hair with one yellow-nailed hand. ~Don’t lecture me about the gods and their sense of time.~

  “Your goddess won’t choose a queen in Her prison,” Nathaniel said. “Sarah Elytharias Penn can free Her.”

  Then he clapped his borrowed hands on Maltres Korinn’s shoulders. His own hands slipped from the borrowed body and grabbed the yoke that Korinn couldn’t see; in his own eyes, Nathaniel had four hands sprouting from two wrists.

  He squeezed the ends of the yoke together. The wood in the middle bowed up.

  Korinn gasped and stared, wide-eyed.

  ~What are you doing?~ the old man asked, leaning forward as if he might intervene.

  The woman restrained him with a hand on his chest. ~Wait.~

  ~It hurts,~ Korinn gasped.

  “Peace,” Nathaniel whispered. “The pain ends now.”

  He roared and forced the two yoke-ends together. The yoke shattered into multiple pieces, and the force of the blow knocked Nathaniel right out of his borrowed body.

  Like a discarded puppet, the body fell to the floor. Korinn dropped also, weeping.

  Nathaniel sighed. He thought Korinn would free Sarah now, so Nathaniel’s work was done. He turned to leave, and saw the man standing outside the window, holding the end of the string.

  Nathaniel considered. Stooping, he reached inside the mouth of the man’s empty body and dug around until he found the string end, a tangled knot pulled tight against one side of his skull. Gripping the knot tightly, he wound the string around his wrist to make it secure, and then began beating his drum.

  He felt the power of his horses beneath him.

  “Hold on tight,” he said to the man standing outside the window. Then he galloped out of the hill.

  As he passed, he snatched the imp from the woman’s shoulder. It was a gristly knot, the size of a squirrel, and its eyes were jaundiced. The creature squealed in his hand and bit Nathaniel’s finger. As his horses bore him outside and under the stars again, the string whipped through the head of the man lying on the floor, and the man standing outside the window was pulled inside. He hit the floor hard, both hands tightly gripping the string, and then was yanked back into his body through his ear.

  Nathaniel slowed his horses, dropped the string, and returned to look through the window.

  The man lying on the floor stood up. ~What happened?~ he asked.

  Korinn, also standing, shook his head mutely.

  ~You’ve been restored by the goddess,~ the woman said. ~She wants us to free Sarah Elytharias.~

  ~Can it be wise to do anything other than obey Her?~ the healed man asked.

  ~It can’t,~ Maltres Korinn said. ~I go to free Elytharias now.~

  He strode purposefully from the hill.

  The imp in his grip shrieked in wordless rage, biting Nathaniel again. Nathaniel hurled it to the earth and then trapped it under his heel.

  The imp glared at him and howled one final time.

  Nathaniel ground his heel back and forth until the imp was nothing but a knobby yellow paste.

  At that moment, Nathaniel noticed a third version of the healed man. The third version was so faint Nathaniel could see through him, but he had stars shining in his eyes. He stood still outside the window, looking in. His hands were empty and his face was full of sorrow, so Nathaniel’s healing of him was not complete. For that matter, there remained the old man with the bleeding heart. Nathaniel wanted to ease his sorrows as well…but how?

  And Nathaniel worried he had already spent too much time here. Korinn would free Sarah, and she had said she would help him.

  Perhaps the goddess would be her ally in that effort.

  Nathaniel needed to return to his friends. He rode his horses back uphill to the windy plain under the upside-down stars. Again he crossed the gust bearing the beastly cries of raging animals, and the sheer will to destroy and cause pain that he heard in those voices made him shudder.

  They also made him
think of the earl.

  Ma’iingan had said he would become a healer. Ma’iingan’s manidoo had said the same thing, and now Nathaniel found himself indeed healing. Not physical wounds, but other sorts of scars and injuries.

  Could he heal the earl?

  He listened first for Ma’iingan’s voice and heard it, shouting words Nathaniel didn’t understand. Algonk war cries, perhaps, but Nathaniel heard strength and courage in the voice as well as fear.

  He listened for the earl.

  He heard the raptor’s cries immediately and rode toward them.

  He had found the slope down that he was sure led to the earl’s manor when he was knocked from his horses.

  Nathaniel rolled in the tall heavenly grass, smelling sweet nebula dust kicked up by his horses’ hooves, and he managed to grab one of his beasts as it fled in panic. The horses pulled him and he sang to the beats of their hooves, gradually climbing back atop them and then reining them in and turning them back to face his attacker.

  A man stood on the plain, and not on it. Beneath his feet was a pool of golden liquid that stank of putrefaction, a sea of corrupt pus. Faces floated in that sea—men’s faces, women’s, children’s, the faces of beastkind, faces of beings Nathaniel couldn’t identify. The faces bore expressions of fear and loss, and the man stood on their faces as one might stand on stones when crossing a shallow stream.

  The man himself was as surreal and horrifying as the platform on which he stood. His feet were bare, with dead-white skin and long yellow nails—as long as a handspan, and the toenails dug into the faces of the beings trapped in the pool of rot and made them bleed. Tattered clothing clung to a wiry body whose pale skin showed in various tears and holes, and long nails extended also from china-white fingers. Long red curly hair spilled down over his shoulders, marking the black and white of his general appearance with a shocking, bloodlike accent. His face was also pale, long yellow teeth hanging from receded gums, but his eyes were white.

  White and crawling with living things. As Nathaniel looked at the man’s face, a worm dribbled out of his eye and down his cheek.

  A faint cloud of sand swarmed about him, like a thousand screaming mosquitos.