Witch Catcher

by Mary Downing Hahn

  "I'm sorry for ye and yer dad," she whispered. "Her has wicked strong magic."

  I nodded. No one had to tell me about Moura's power. It was Dad who needed to be told. But he wouldn't listen to a word against her.

  I raised my head and looked at Kieryn. She was in her own shape again, crouched on the bed and shivering in her rags and tatters.

  "You can't go around dressed like that." I pulled some clothes out of my drawer—a T-shirt, underwear, shorts. "Here, put these on."

  Turning her back, Kieryn peeled off her clothing, yanked on mine, then looked at herself in the mirror. "Great purple toads!" she exclaimed. "I be as ugly as a wergle in these here boshy clothes."

  She was right. Even in their wretched condition, her own clothes had looked better on her than mine did. Shorts and a T-shirt merely accentuated her strangeness. It would be hard to convince anyone she was an ordinary human being. Not with those eyes and that skin.

  I yanked open the bottom drawer and pulled out a long old-fashioned nightgown. The bodice was pleated in tiny folds, and its neck, cuffs, and hem were ruffled and trimmed with lace. I'd picked it from a catalog and Dad had given it to me for Christmas. I'd been saving it for a special occasion. This was definitely as special as occasions come.

  I held it up for Kieryn to see. "Is this better?"

  Her wide mouth spread into a big smile of pure delight. "Oh, aye, Jen, aye. It's purely proper, and pretty as well."

  She shed the shorts and T-shirt and slipped the gown over her head. Twirling around, she admired her reflection in the mirror." Thank'ee, thank'ee," she said. "I feels more like my true self now."

  As she spun. I glimpsed a silver chain around her neck. "What's that?" I asked.

  Kieryn's hand flew to her chest as if to hide the necklace. "What's what?"

  "The chain around your neck."

  "I didn't mean for ye to see it," Kieryn said in a low voice. "But maybe it's best ye know."

  Reaching inside the nightgown, she slowly pulled out the delicate silver chain. On it hung a stone the color of the midnight sky, set in twisted strands of silver as delicate as cobwebs. It was similar to Moura's red pendant, but made with greater skill. A shape like a tiny star glimmered in the stone's depth.

  "Mam gave me this afore she sent me here. Without it, I can't go home. The door is sealed against all—even me." Kieryn held the stone to the light and stared into it as if she saw her world there.

  I moved a little closer. "I don't understand. Why did your mother send you here?"

  "It be a long story and hard to tell, but it was during the Third War of the Witches that our troubles began," Kieryn said. "My father, the king, was newly dead, and the witches rose up, stronger than ever. They come after Brynn and me, planning to kill us, I expect, on account of our royal blood. Mam led us deep, deep into the forest to a tall oak tree. Its trunk was so big, ten folk couldn't have joined hands and reached around it. Ye might say it were the king of the trees. Mam held up the pendant, and a door opened in the tree, a door into the darkest dark ye ever saw.

  Kieryn shuddered, and Tink crept into her lap, purring as if to comfort her. "Mam slipped the chain over my head. 'Guard this stone well,' she said, 'for ye can't come home without it.' With that, she pushed us through the door and shouted 'Run, run. and keep running till ye come out the other side.' And we did—my brother. Brynn, and me and our three aunties. We ran through the dark and the cold, thinking Mam were following us."

  She paused to wipe her eyes on the sleeve of the nightgown. "We five come out into a forest, but Mam weren't with us. I started to run back into the dark for her, but the tree closed itself up all ordinary-like, and there was only bark where the door had been. Brynn and I beat on it with our fists and called Mam, but she didn't open the door, she didn't come out."

  Kieryn turned her head away, but even with her back to me, I knew she was crying and didn't want me to see. "I tried the stone, but it didn't work. The aunties said it were too soon to go home."

  I put my arm around her skinny little shoulders, and Tink nestled closer, purring and rubbing his face against hers. He always sensed when I needed comforting and did his best to make me feel better. Now he was doing the same for Kieryn.

  "Oh, Jen," she whispered, "we was in a strange place, not our world, but yers. All dark arid sad, with no magic—and no Mam."

  Taking Tink with her, Kieryn slid off the bed and went to the window. "Then we saw that tower." She pointed across the yard. "It had the bosky feel of magic—but good or bad, we couldn't tell. An old man with a beard were standing in the doorway, staring at us like he could scarce believe his eyes. It were Mostyn ... yer dimbob uncle. He called out to us, all nicey-nice, but we didn't dare trust him. Off we ran, down the hid, and into the woods."

  Kieryn clenched her fists. "That's when we spied her and him and the hound snarking through the trees. Somehow they'd come through the door, searching, seeking, sniffing, as witches do. Lucky for us, our three aunties know plenty of magic, more than Brynn and me, 'cause we're just young. They made hiding spells to keep us all safe."

  Kieryn came back to the bed. "After that we was cautious," she went on. "We kept a close watch on the tower and this big old house. We knew yer uncle had a gift, else he wouldn't have seen us so quick. Most of yer kind are such dimbobs they never notice us passing through yer world. Too smart he were. Too learned in our ways."

  I remembered the old books in the tower, filled with strange letters like the runes carved on the door. Uncle Thaddeus had stayed up there night and day, Dad said. He was eccentric, odd, mistrusted by the people in town. Had he been studying magic? Witchcraft?

  "I suspect there be a bit of yer uncle in ye," Kieryn said. "Somehow ye knew to hide that globe from her, ye knew not to trust her or him. But ye trust me, do ye not?"

  I forced myself to return Kieryn's steady gaze. "Yes," I said. "I do trust you." But even as I spoke, I felt as if I was wading into a dark pool; with every step I took, I sank deeper into the murky water.

  "But smart as that old rascal was, he weren't no match for her," Kieryn went on with her story. "Soon her came calling on him, all pretty pretty and sweet. In a blink of a lizard's eye, she wove her fossicky spells, till yer uncle couldn't ted a snog from a wergle. She warned him that strange creatures had been seen near his tower. They was evil, she said. Dangerous. They came from another world, they wasn't human like him and her. Her gave the little-wit dozens of them pisky traps, all hidden away in velvet bags so she couldn't see them and get caught herself. Hang the traps in the woods, she said. And that's just what Mostyn done."

  Kieryn rose from the bed and prowled around my room, as restless as Tink. "Oh, so pretty them traps were, like they had rainbows inside, swinging from branches, tinkling like bells when they bumped up against each other, asparkle with sunshine by day and moonshine by night. Nary a one of us, not even the aunties, could stay away from them skitzy things. They pulled us and tugged at us. First Brynn got sucked in, then the aunties. I were last, holding fast to a tree. But even with my eyes tight shut, I could see them colors in my mind, drawing me closer, closer."

  She wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. "Just as I lost my grip on the tree, I opened my eyes and there was Mostyn, staring at me like I were a dream come true. Then—poof!—I were inside the globe, looking out at him. He stuck his boshy old face up close to the glass and told me he'd give the others to her but aimed to keep me for hisself."

  Kieryn scowled. "It weren't on account he were a good man and he were aiming to save me," she said. "No, that weren't it at all. Mostyn wanted me because I were a right interesting specimen, and he wanted to study me."

  She sighed and stopped pacing long enough to look out the window. "The next day, her came calling, and Mostyn gave her four full traps and the empty ones as well, all packed up in them velvet bags. He told her that were all he had. A good lie for me that was, but bad for Brynn and the aunties. Away they went with her, a clinking and a clanking in the b
ags till I don't wonder they was all sick."

  Kieryn fed silent for a moment. Tink rubbed against her ankles, purring, and she picked him up.

  "Her didn't believe Mostyn," she said. "Back her came time and time again, always asking for me, and Mostyn always saying he caught but four demons and already gave them to her. Soon her was living in the house, just like she is now."

  "Did my uncle love her, too? Just like Dad?"

  "I reckon he thought he did, for surely he were under her spell, just like yer daddy. After all, ain't love potions witches' work?"

  "But if she enchanted my uncle, why didn't he give her the trap?"

  "He'd learned himself some magic from them big old bosky books in the tower, just enough, I reckon, to keep her from getting me. Meanwhile, he'd started painting those pictures of me—pictures he kept hidden from her. But her kept on with the nicey-nice, sugartime sweet, hoping to break his sped. Then one day //ergot tired of waiting and done a nasty that made Mostyn go all sideways and crooked like. He couldn't walk or talk right afterward, but afore she'd done her bad spell on him, he'd sealed the tower door agin her with a charm he knew, and she couldn't get in to fossick me away."

  Kieryn perched on the edge of the bed and gazed at me. "So there I stayed, watching day to night, day to night through them swirly colors, with my head getting more and more wooly. Till ye came and stole me away to yer room and hung me all secret in the window and never knowed I was inside watching ye and crying to be let out."

  Kieryn smiled. "Ye and Tink done me a good deed, and I won't forget it, but I got something more to ask of ye. A favor, like. Friend to friend." She twirled a lock of hair around her finger and pulled it tight. "It be a hard favor, Jen, but I need yer help to rescue my brother and my aunties."

  Caught up in her story, I squeezed Kieryn's hands. She was my friend, she'd just said so, a friend like no other I'd ever have. Without thinking, I said, "Of course I will."

  She hesitated a moment and then said, "I'll be leading ye into peril, Jen. Her be more dangerous than ye know. We must be ever on guard against her and him and their fossicky ways. They want me terrible bad."

  I shivered and held Kieryn's hands tighter. Moura was my enemy as well as hers. No matter how dangerous the witch was, I had to save Dad—and Kieryn, too. For once in my life, I needed to be brave. Truly brave.

  Suddenly, Kieryn tensed. "Hers coming," she whispered. "I hear her car. Quick, take the pendant. Hide it. Keep it safe. It be the key to my world."

  She thrust the stone at me, and I closed my hand around it cautiously, almost fearfully. It felt warm and smooth—and magical.

  "Her needs this to get her wickedly bad self back to our world," Kieryn whispered. "Ye must not let her get it. Her means naught but harm to my kinkind."

  I looked around my room, seeking a hiding place. My mother's old jewelry box sat on my bureau, tilled with strings of beads, tarnished chains, and an assortment of bracelets and earrings.

  "That's the first place her will look," Kieryn said.

  I shook my head. "I read a story once about a stolen letter. Everybody was hunting for it, but they never thought to look in the most obvious place—the letter rack."

  I made a little hole in the lining of the box, pushed the pendant inside, and dumped the jewelry back inside. "There!"

  Kieryn looked skeptical. "Her and him are good sniffers, ye know. And so's the hound." Dropping to the floor, she crawled under my bed and pried up a piece of floorboard. She then held out her hand for the box.

  Kieryn lowered it into the space she'd made and laid the board over it. She remained under the bed for a few moments more, chanting words I couldn't understand.

  "There." She crawled out with a grin on her face. "I put my best spell on it. Let's hope her won't find it."

  We went back to the window. Moura's sleek little car drew up to the house, its headlights dim in the rain. Wordlessly, Kieryn, Tink, and I watched the car's door open. The interior light came on, revealing Moura in her usual glamorous red and black—a long, sweeping black skirt, a white lacy blouse, and a black jacket patterned with red flames.

  "Witch colors," Kieryn hissed.

  Cadoc leapt out of the car and watched Dad run through the rain to help Moura with her suitcases.

  "She's not wearing her tinted glasses," I said.

  "They keep her from seeing the colors in the witch trap," Kieryn whispered. "Her don't need 'em now the trap's been broke."

  Hoping Dad wouldn't call me to join him and Moura, I grabbed a book and flung myself on the bed. Kieryn curled up beside me, and in an instant transformed herself. Now she looked for all the world like an ordinary little gray cat.

  "Tell me about yer mam," she said. "She must not be hereabouts or yer daddy wouldn't be all sheep-eyed, lovey-dovey over for"

  I sighed. "My mother died when I was a baby."

  Kieryn snuggled closer. "Oh, poor Jen. If I knew I'd never see Mam again, my heart would break into a million billion pieces." Her voice was as comforting as a cat's purr.

  I swallowed hard. "I never even knew her." I picked up the picture on the chest beside my bed. "This is how my mother looked just after she married Dad. They were in Bermuda, on their honeymoon."

  Kieryn studied the photo. My mother wore tan shorts and a red T-shirt. She was laughing, her head tilted, long blond hair swinging out to the side. Behind her was the ocean and a blue sky.

  "She were beautiful, Jen."

  "She was." I put Mom's picture on the chest and studied her as I had so often. I longed to know what lay behind that laughing face—her thoughts, her feelings, what she loved, what she didn't love. But she was gone from this world. She couldn't answer my questions; she couldn't help me. And she couldn't help Dad.

  Catlike, Kieryn rubbed her furry gray face against mine. "We'd save yer father, Jen, I promise ye. Her won't have him. We'll put an end to her and her skitzy ways. I got some magic, ye know."

  I lay on my bed, with Tink purring on one side and Kieryn purring on the other. For the moment, I felt warm and safe. Kieryn would help me. Somehow we'd defeat Moura.

  Kieryn nudged my book with her paw. "Read to me," she whispered. "I ain't heard a story for longer than long."

  "It's The Woman in White," I told her. "I borrowed it from Uncle Thaddeus's library. I haven't read much, so I'll go back and start at the beginning."

  We hadn't gotten to the end of the first chapter when Dad called me. "Jen, please come down and set the table. Dinner's almost ready."

  I didn't answer, just went on reading. Dad called again, closer this time. It sounded as if he was at the foot of the steps.

  Kieryn put her paw on the book. "It's best ye go," she whispered. "Next thing he'll be up here, fussy fussing at ye. Her will be on his side, ye know, always trying to make him love her best."

  "Dad would never let Moura come between us," I protested. "I'm his daughter. He loves me."

  "Don't make him be choosing between her and ye. Her has spells and magic and charms. Ye got nothing but yer little girly self."

  I scowled at the gray cat. "Dad would choose me, I know he would." But even as I spoke, my voice faltered. I'd read fairy tales where the evil stepmother convinced the father to abandon his children. With Kieryn in cat form sitting beside me, fairy tales were easier to believe than true stories.

  I closed the book with an angry snap and stood up, unwilling to listen to another word. Kieryn had frightened me. Suppose Moura cast a spell so strong that Dad stopped loving me?

  At the door, I looked back at Kieryn. "Are you coming downstairs with me?"

  "Nay." She curled into a soft ball of gray fur and shut her eyes. "Her hates cats. And so do her hound."

  "Jen, do I have to come up there?" Dad shouted.

  Slowly I went out into the hall and looked down the stairs at Dad. Moura stood beside him, her arm linked with his, her face unreadable. Without her glasses, I got the full benefit of her piercing stare. Cadoc stood beside his mistress, his narrow no
se pointed up at me, his eyes as sharp as hers.

  Knowing what I knew now, I didn't dare return Moura's stare. For all I knew, she could read my innermost thoughts. Turning to Dad, I said, "Sorry, I wanted to finish the chapter I was reading."

  Moura flashed her humorless smile at me. "Oh, I loved to read when I was your age. In fact, I still do. A good book, a cozy room, a cat or two curled next to you—what could be more delightful on a rainy night?"

  The sound of her voice scratched my nerves like a cats claws, but Dad gave Moura a tender look before grinning at me. "You see, Jen? She'd fit right into our household. Think how pleasant our evenings will be, the three of us reading by the fire, cats on our laps, a dog at our feet."

  I longed to tell Dad I preferred the evenings of the past when he and I read together, just the two of us, but I restrained myself. Smiling so stiffly that my face hurt, I joined the two of them.

  10

  WHILE DAD GRILLED steaks on the terrace behind the house, I set the table with Great-Uncle Thaddeus's beautiful old silver and china. I could hear Moura's voice but not what she was saying. Dad said something, and the two of them laughed. The sound made me feel lonely, shut out, unwanted. I looked up at Great-Uncle Thaddeus's portrait. "This is all your fault. Why did you believe that woman?"

  When the portrait failed to respond, I realized I'd fully expected it to. Anything could happen in this house. Portraits might speak, ghosts rattle chains in the dark hallways, blue lights flit from room to room, footsteps echo, doors open and shut.

  I walked closer to the portrait and glared at the old man. "Well?" I asked. "Don't you have anything to say for yourself?"

  "Jen?"

  I whirled around to see Moura in the doorway, arms crossed, staring at me. "I thought I heard you talking to someone," she said.

  "No." I shook my head and tried to laugh. "I was just muttering to myself."

  "About what?" She stepped closer. I could smell the musky scent of her perfume.

  "It was Tink." The cat had appeared from nowhere, winding around my ankles and mewing. "He was about to jump up on the table. He's not supposed to do that. So I was telling him what a bad cat he is."