The Near Witch

by Victoria Schwab

  “Lexi,” he exhales, drawing large deep breaths, as if the wind stole the air right from his lungs. The wind has dried the wet streaks on his cheeks and woven soft patterns through his hair. “Now you know. That’s what I am. I’m sorry.”

  He seems to crumble, sliding toward the ground, but I catch his arm. His breath is ragged, and for a moment I think he’ll faint.

  “Don’t be.”

  “I understand,” he says, swaying on his feet, “if you don’t want to—”

  I cut him off. “Is that what you meant before, when you kissed me,‘just in case’?”

  He looks out over my head to the east, eyes shining, but I can see the edge of his mouth quirk.

  “Look at me,” I say, running my fingers along his jaw and turning his face back to mine. “I’m still here.”

  Cole kisses me once, a quiet, desperate kiss. I can taste the pain on his lips, the hint of salt. Then he pulls away and looks east again. I follow his gaze. The very corners of the sky are changing. If we do not make our way back toward Near, dawn will sneak in and catch us unprepared.

  “Come on.”

  He lets me lead him, my fingertips pressed against his arm, reassuring my skin with his that he’s still there. I walk slowly, not wanting Near to come into view too soon. The cyclone may be gone, but it still feels like we are alone in the world.

  It’s Cole who breaks the silence as we walk. “I wanted to show you. But not like that. I promised myself,” he murmurs, “to never let it happen again, to never lose control.”

  “But you can control it. I just saw you…” My fingers give a small squeeze. “You coiled that wind around your hand before you started to get upset. And when you forgot your anger for a moment it all broke apart. I’m sure if you just—”

  “It’s too dangerous,” he says, his eyes sliding shut as we walk, his feet gliding over the tangled earth. “All it takes is one slip.”

  “But Cole…”

  “Why do you think I led you all the way out here? It’s been more than a year since that night, and I have told myself every day, with every breath, to stay calm, to be empty.” He meets my gaze. “Why do you think I stay out of the village? Why do you think I tried not to get close to you?” I remember the way he pulled away, avoided even brushing his hand against mine. The strange expression, concern and something else, when he found my fingers intertwined with his.

  “I never intended to stop here,” he says. “I was just passing through.”

  “Where were you going?”

  He shakes his head, and the effort of it seems exhausting. “I don’t know. Ever since that night, I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t bear to stop moving.”

  “But you stopped here. Why?”

  He stops walking, and I turn back toward him.

  “I heard something,” he says, his hands coming to rest, weightless, on my shoulders. “Something terrible is happening in Near, Lexi. This place, it’s as if it’s possessed. The wind is possessed. By songs. And voices.”

  I frown.

  “My sister, Wren,” I say. “She said the strangest thing this morning. She said the missing children came to her window, asked her to play. She said she heard them.”

  Cole tenses down to his fingertips. “The voices I’ve heard couldn’t have belonged to those children. Not exactly. It was a woman’s voice. She wasn’t shaping the wind. Not the way I shape it. It was as if her voice was the wind. And it wasn’t just the wind, either. It felt like everything was moving under a spell. At first I just stopped to listen, to see if there was another witch here.”

  His hands begin to slip from my shoulders, but I bring mine up and keep them there.

  “So is there a witch? Luring the children from their beds?”

  He nods. “The voice had this singsong quality to it. I was circling the village when I heard it. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I knew something was wrong.”

  “What do you mean, wrong?”

  “I’ve never met another witch before coming here,” he says. “But what I do, I can only do it with the wind, and only the surface, the shape. This witch was using the wind in a way I never knew possible. That’s what I mean. Wrong.”

  “And you stayed?”

  “The next night the children started disappearing. I knew it had to be connected. Nothing can make up for what happened in my village, but I thought if I could do something to help, then I needed to.”

  “That’s why you were out on the moors last night, near Edgar’s home.”

  He nods again, his breath slowing, coming easier. We start moving again, over the hills toward the sisters’ house. “Then I met you. The sisters didn’t want to talk to me about what was happening. But they said I should ask you about the story.”

  The pieces click into place. The way the wind sings the Witch’s Rhyme. The lack of clues, the eerie path running on top of the heather and tall grass. Dreska’s fight with Master Tomas. “You think it’s the Near Witch?”

  “You sound so disbelieving,” he says as we crest a small hill and the grove comes back into sight. We make our way to the nest of trees.

  “It is hard to believe.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she died, Cole. Calling rain or flowers forth is one thing. Rising up from the dead is another.”

  Cole frowns, the crease between his eyes deepening. We reach the far side of the grove, not the place where he pulled me from the path and onto the moor, but the side that looks up at the sisters’ house. My eyes sweep up the hill to the old stone cottage. Beside it the low stone wall shimmers like a slice of moon, or water, and all I can think is how badly I want to reach it and lie down. That’s how tired I am: I could sleep happily on rocks. My head is cottony thick with questions as I step from the grove, and that’s when three things happen.

  Cole’s hand tightens around my wrist.

  The wind picks up, burying our breaths.

  The metal barrel of a gun glints in the moonlight.

  COLE PULLS ME BACK into the shadow of the grove just as Otto and Bo climb into sight on the moonlit moor. They’re by the shed; my uncle hoists his gun and disappears around the corner of the slanting structure while Bo limps back and forth, hands in his pockets, and looks out at the moor. Otto appears again from the other side of the shed, and I can hear his muttered curses from here.

  “Where is he?” My uncle’s voice rumbles down the hill toward us.

  “Are you sure he’s here?” asks Bo, toeing a patch of dirt with his boot. He gestures to the sprawling countryside. “Come on, Otto. Let’s head back,” he says, yawning. “I haven’t seen my bed in days.”

  “He’s got to be here. I know they’re hiding him.” He sounds tense, tired. “Dammit.” He looks out past the shed at the night-soaked world. I can imagine him squinting, hoping something comes to life.

  “I thought you said we were doing this in the morning, anyway. Now you’re pulling me out here in the middle of the night.”

  “I changed my mind. I thought we’d have a better shot now. Before the village is up.”

  He means before I’m up, before I can get here to warn Cole. He knows. Or at least suspects.

  Behind Otto, Bo sighs and pulls a few things from his pockets. He strides over to the shed and kneels as best he can with his bad leg, dropping a small object to the ground. Then he shoves a swatch of cloth beneath the edge of one of the rotting boards of the shed, when my uncle finally turns and notices him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Speeding things up,” says Bo, kicking some dirt over the piece of cloth. “What’s your plan? Pull up a chair and wait for the boy to show? Or wait around for the sisters to find you and throw you in the hearth?”

  I swear beneath my breath as I realize what’s going on. He’s planting evidence.

  “I don’t like this at all, Bo,” my uncle says, his tone a mixture of shock and anger.

  “Look, Otto, something has to be done.” Bo brings a hand down hard on my un
cle’s shoulder. “We know it’s him. This way we can help the others realize it too.”

  “The Council put you up to this, didn’t they?”

  Bo pauses, seems to weigh his words. “Master Eli says it’s for the best.”

  “He told you and not me?”

  A grim smile creeps over Bo’s face. “You’ve been preoccupied. But this needs to be taken care of.”

  “And what about the children?” growls Otto. “How does this get us any closer to finding them?”

  “Once we have the stranger,” he says, gesturing back toward the shed, “we can get him to tell us where they are. Until then…”

  My uncle’s shoulders have crept up to his ears. I’m leaning forward, hoping he’ll say, No, enough, this is wrong.

  But he doesn’t.

  He just runs his fingers through his hair, tugs his beard, and follows Bo down the hill. I shrink back against Cole. Bo and Otto are coming along the path toward the grove.

  Toward us.

  My pulse quickens, and Cole must sense it, because he tightens his arms around me and breathes into my hair, something between a kiss and a shushing sound.

  Then he slips backward through the trees, impossibly silent over twigs and dead leaves, taking me with him. Inch by inch we slide back from the path, into the shelter of the thicker trunks. The wind picks up just enough to make the branches and the clinging leaves hum as the two men enter the grove.

  My uncle passes, inches from my face.

  But he doesn’t see me. His eyes never leave the back of Bo’s head.

  And then they’re gone, out of the grove and back toward Near. And there we are, Cole and me pressed against a tree in the thickening night. He lets out a long breath. It wanders down the back of my neck, and I shiver.

  “That was close,” Cole whispers. I peel myself away, and we slip back onto the path.

  “Cole, they’re going to frame you.”

  “Then I’ll remove the evidence.”

  “Don’t you see? That’s not the point.” I lean back against a tree. “They don’t care if you did it or not. How can we prove you’re innocent?”

  “We can’t. They don’t care about innocence.”

  “We’ve got to find the one who’s really doing this,” I say. “If it is the Near Witch, if she’s somehow come back, then how do we find her? How do we stop her?” My head is pounding. I feel ragged.

  “Lexi,” he says, with a strange calm that might just be exhaustion, “you said yourself the children’s voices weren’t made by children. And that wind path wasn’t made by feet. This is craft. How many witches in the town of Near?”

  “The sisters, and the Near Witch—who’s dead, last time I checked—and you.”

  “Do you trust the sisters?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you trust me?” he asks.

  I take a step toward him. “I do.”

  “Then it has to be the Near Witch.”

  I nod, warily. My gut tells me that it’s true, or at least possible, and my father taught me to trust my gut. But what is it that she’s doing, exactly, and how do you stop a witch who is supposed to be dead? My head spins. Sleep, just a little, my body pleads.

  “We’ll figure this out, Lexi.” He closes the gap between us, and his fingers wander down my jaw. “What happens to the Near Witch in the story?”

  “She was banished. Cast out of Near. She died alone among the weeds hundreds of years ago.”

  “How did your father tell it? Maybe there are clues.”

  I lean my head against his chest and close my eyes. My thoughts drag, but I try to pick up where I left off, try to remember my father’s ending. The thing about reciting a story is that it’s hard to start again when you stop in the middle. I remember things in wholes, not pieces.

  “Let’s see,” I whisper, feeling as though I could float away. “The Near Witch was a part of everything and nothing. And she loved the village, and the children, very much. Some days, when she was feeling patient, she would do tricks for them. Only small ones, like making the flowers bloom in a blink, or making the wind whisper things that were almost words. The children were starved for craft of any kind and eager to see it everywhere, and they loved her for it.”

  I pause, because my father always paused at this point. My father only told me the next part once or twice, and it’s hard for me to find the words. “Until one day. One day a boy died in the garden, and the world changed. The three hunters who protected the village banished the witch. The night she was cast out, her cottage sank into the grass, and her garden grew back into the soil. And she was never seen again. But she was heard, out on the moor, singing her hills to sleep. Over the years and years the singing softened, until it was little more than the wind. And then it died away entirely. And that was the last of the Near Witch.” I sigh. “Not terribly useful, but that’s how my father told it, anyway.”

  Cole leans back a little to look at me. “You say that like there’s another version.”

  “I think so.” I shake my head, dazed. “Magda has never told it, but I know she doesn’t believe this ending. I told it to her once and she scrunched up her face and shook her head.”

  “Well, that’s a start. If there’s another ending, one the sisters aren’t sharing, then maybe it’s because there’s truth in it. We’ll ask them in the morning.”

  “They don’t trust me,” I say.

  “They don’t trust anyone. But they’ll tell us. Now go home. Sleep.” He plants a light kiss on top of my head and turns to leave the grove.

  “Wait,” I say, pulling him back. “What about Otto? He’ll come back.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “How?” I ask, the tightness working back into my chest. “Where are you going to hide?”

  As if in response, the wind around us picks up, whipping leaves into small swirls, and right before my eyes, Cole begins to blur, his edges fading into the night around us. He offers a faint smile. “There’s plenty of space.”

  My grip tightens on his arm, afraid he’ll melt away entirely. But the wind dies down and he’s there, flesh and blood again.

  “How long can you hide?” I ask, hopelessness creeping in with fatigue.

  “Just until we find the real one responsible. Just until we find the children. Then I won’t have to.”

  It’s not as specific an answer as I was hoping for, but I suppose it will do. I lean in to kiss him good night.

  “Just in case,” I whisper.

  His hands wrap around my waist, but he hesitates.

  “What is it?” I say, taking a step back.

  “I’m tired. I don’t have as much control.”

  “Then stay calm.” I lean forward, as smooth and slow as if he were a deer. When my lips are inches from his, I pause, wait for him to pull back again, but he doesn’t. My breath presses against his.

  “Stay calm,” I repeat, and my lips brush his. The clouds suddenly stop moving, as if they want to pause the moment as much as I do. When I pull away, there is something new on his face, something faint, a trace of a smile. Tired, but there.

  And then he’s the one pulling me closer, his cool hand against the curve of my back as he lets kisses fall on my shoulder, my neck. A small laugh escapes me as his hair tickles my skin. It feels good—both to laugh and to be held like this. The wind around us begins to ripple, to rise and fall. Cole works his way up until his eyes meet mine. Overhead, the sky grows darker, almost black, and I know that that’s not right. We have passed the darkest part of night, and the light should be spreading. I lean my head back, peering up through the tree’s canopy at the sky. The clouds are still there, blotting out the moon.

  “Cole,” I whisper as the wavering wind turns into something stronger. “Cole, stay calm.”

  His eyes lock onto mine again, and this time he frowns. “It’s not me,” he says as the wind grows and grows, curling itself into a familiar melody that makes my heart sink. “It’s her.”

  And ju
st then the world goes black and the song gets louder. There beneath the melody, I hear it, those almost-words. The ones the adults do not hear and the children hear too clearly, calling them from their beds.

  Wren. My chest constricts again as I realize what’s happening. The song and the unnatural darkness come each night, and in the morning beds are empty. I have to get home. I pull away from him, turning back through the grove, when the world sways violently beneath my feet. Cole’s fingers tighten around mine, and he says something, but I cannot hear. The music overtakes everything, and the night is thick as ink. The moor beneath me falls away. His fingers fall away. The night falls away. And all goes dark and still.

  SUNLIGHT, SUDDEN AND WARM, pours across the bed.

  I sit up with a start. My mother’s soft steps sound in the kitchen. Wren’s skipping ones thump in the hall. Wren. Home and safe. A shuddering breath escapes. I feel numb, dazed. How did I get here? The light filtering in is crisp and clean.

  A memory ripples, as thin as a dream, of being half carried, half guided home, a low voice whispering as my boots slid over the tangled grass. I cast off the sheets. My cloak is sitting by the dresser. I cross to the window and push it open, looking down. My boots are waiting neatly beneath the sill. Everything is in its place.

  When I bump into Wren in the hall, I kneel and throw my arms around her, ignoring her attempts to wriggle free.

  “They’re all playing without me,” she pouts.

  “Who is?” If Wren is here and safe, then whose bed was found empty this morning?

  But the answer greets me soon enough.

  “And Mrs. Harp says the same thing,” a voice says.

  It’s Tyler, of all people, eagerly relaying the details to my mother.

  And he’s talking about Mrs. Harp. Emily’s mother. The girl takes shape in my mind, doing a tiny, playful twirl, two dark braids trailing behind her like kite tails.

  “No clues at all?” asks my mother softly.

  I linger there in the hall a moment, still hugging Wren and listening for more fractured bits of conversation.