by Alex Aster
“Careful,” Mrs. Libra said, expertly navigating a narrow trail that created a sort of maze through the columns of books. She carved a path through the mess like an underground mole. “One of these falls over, and it’ll bury you. That’s how Mr. Libra passed, bless his heart.”
Engle shot Tor a horrified look.
The next room was not nearly as organized as the first. It held mounds of mess—a pile of pots and pans taller than Tor, an endless sea of ripped-out pages, bookcases and chairs that had been stacked one on top of the other, as if to make wood for a giant bonfire.
Tor exhaled in relief when they moved out of that room and into the next. That was, until he hit his head against a rather large text. He rubbed his forehead and blinked a few times in disbelief.
Dozens of books hung from the ceiling by pieces of string, creating some sort of floating library. They swayed back and forth, and Tor was reminded of the giant holiday ornaments that had, up until recently, decorated the town tree. Mrs. Libra seemed to have her own organizational system, because she walked right up to a book hanging in one corner of the room and opened it up.
Her finger jabbed a page that had a drawing of the exact mark Tor had sprouted on his wrist, an eye with veiny spiderwebs for lashes. “It’s a witch’s curse. Knew it the second I saw it,” Mrs. Libra said.
“Witch’s curse?” Tor said in disbelief. Witch was a foul name for a person who had been born with multiple emblems. Possessing more than one was considered strange. Evil, in some circles. Too much power to be held responsibly. History had taught the Emblemites that a person with that much ability would always be driven to do dark deeds.
This was taking it too far. First curses, now talk of a witch? As far as Tor knew, there hadn’t been an active one in years.
Mrs. Libra gave him a look. “That’s what I said.”
“There are no witches.”
She smirked. “I didn’t say witches, plural, I said witch. The Night Witch.”
Tor blinked. There was a moment of quiet. Then, he barked out a laugh. “The Night Witch?” He turned to Engle, who snorted. Melda was the only one who looked grim. But, then again, that was how she always looked. “That’s a fairy tale! Cuentos stuff.”
The hermit’s face turned a remarkable shade of red, anger building in her face like boiling water. She turned sharply on her heel and yanked a book clean off its string. Tor recognized it immediately, with its black cover and delicate, silver title.
The Book of Cuentos.
And not the one he had in his room. This one looked exactly like his mother’s. Raw, completely unedited. Every story intact.
She turned to the last chapter, thumbing the pages so hard she risked tearing a hole right through them. When she found the right illustration, she turned the book to face Tor, the parchment just an inch from his nose.
He knew the drawing before his eyes had a chance to focus—the outline of a woman with dark hair and coals for eyes.
The Night Witch. The queen of Emblem Island nightmares, the overly used threat against children, the protagonist of often-murmured superstitions.
Don’t wear a braid to bed, or the Night Witch will cut it off in your sleep.
Bad luck from the Night Witch travels in threes.
Keep an upside-down broom behind the door to keep the Night Witch from sneaking inside.
But those were pieces of foolish folklore—they never came true. The Lunas had never once put a broom behind the door, and, as far as he knew, the Night Witch had never paid them a visit.
The hermit closed the book hard, a cloud of dust erupting from its pages. “Have more respect for your island’s history, boy,” she said stormily, before pressing the book to his chest. “Best read up.”
History? Tor couldn’t believe he was even entertaining the thought that any of those stories were true. But the proof of their reality was embedded right into his skin. “If she’s real, then how do I make this Night Witch’s curse go away?”
The hermit scrunched her eyebrows together, and dozens of vertical wrinkles formed between them. With her round body, reddish face, and crinkles, Tor thought she looked very much like an overripe plum. “Well, isn’t it obvious?” She threw her arms up in exasperation. “You have to find the witch.”
Tor almost choked on his own tongue. “What?”
That was a task he certainly could not complete before dinner. Engle’s stomach growled behind him.
“Yes, and best hurry,” she said, taking Tor’s hand into her own and placing a sharp nail against his palm. She tapped against his lifeline, and Tor gasped.
His lifeline had been changed—cut short. He had been so busy staring at his curse that he hadn’t even noticed.
Tor’s long, boringly flat line was gone. A short one scattered with valleys sat in its place…
And it ended in a sharp drop.
Tor knew what that meant, and so did Melda, who steadied herself by grabbing one of the hanging books.
By the looks of it, Tor was very close to the end of his life.
The hermit nodded solemnly. “I would say you have about a week. Give or take.”
“How do you know?” Engle asked, breathless.
She gave him a look.
“Where is the Night Witch?” Tor sputtered, suddenly a believer. “Where do I find her?” If anyone knew, it had to be the know-all. According to the last story in Cuentos, the Night Witch lived in a castle on a cliff. But that could be anywhere on Emblem Island.
Mrs. Libra shuffled a few feet away, and murmured, “I have a map here somewhere…” She looked over her shoulder at them. “Ah—forgot to mention. Don’t let anyone touch that dark emblem. That’s about the last thing you’d want to do.”
Melda and Engle shared a wide-eyed look. “What happens to people who touch the marking?” she asked, her voice in a ridiculous high pitch.
Mrs. Libra smirked, and Tor pressed his teeth together to keep a sudden flash of annoyance at bay. That was the thing with know-alls. From what he had heard, their know-allness toward people who did not know everything made them pretty unlikable. Tor wondered if Mrs. Libra was a hermit by choice or simply didn’t have any friends. “The curse latches on to their body, too, of course. Practically everyone knows that.”
Melda gasped, while Engle cried out. They hurried to push their sleeves back.
“I’ve got an eye!” Melda screamed. It blinked hello.
“I have its mouth!” Tor and Melda turned to see a pair of lips on Engle’s wrist. They smiled deviously.
But it was worse than that. Just like Tor, both Engle and Melda’s lifelines had been cut short.
“That’s hogwash!” Engle said. “I had a pretty deep valley coming up.” He crossed his arms across his chest in disappointment. “Wanted to find out what it was going to be.”
Melda laughed without humor. “Well, I’d say this qualifies.” She turned to face Tor. He noticed she still had her leadership bands, and Engle still had his telescope marking. Since they hadn’t made the forbidden wish, it seemed the curse had only affected their lifelines. That, at least, was a relief. “This is your fault,” she said, poking an accusatory finger at him.
She ran her other hand through her black hair, then stomped her foot with enough force to knock a pile of something over in the next room. “What was your stupid wish anyway?”
Tor dropped his gaze to the dirt-coated floor. He didn’t want to say. In his mind, the truth sounded foolish enough, and he suspected saying it aloud would make it seem even worse.
He could lie instead, say he had wished for Emblem Island–wide peace, or a new, more reliable well for the village…
As tempting as that was, Tor knew Melda deserved the true answer. Especially now that she shared his curse. He sighed. “I wished to be rid of my leadership emblem.”
Melda gaped at him, as shock
ed as if he had confessed to wishing for a hurricane. “Why would you ever do that?” she asked, horrified. Tor immediately regretted being so honest. Of course she wouldn’t understand. Just like his mother, she practically worshipped the purple bands around her wrist.
He gritted his teeth. “Because I don’t want to be a chief. I don’t want to lead.” The part of the answer he kept from her was: I want to be something else.
Melda’s face looked frozen, as if she’d stepped right into an arctic pond and floated up stuck inside a glacier. Finally, she began to thaw, her mouth closing and eyebrows coming down. The look she gave him next was a surprise…
She almost seemed disappointed.
Tor had expected her to be at least a little excited. If her one-upping in class was any indication, Melda would have given all of her precious ribbons to be Estrelle’s future Chieftess. The fact Tor’s mother was the current town leader meant he was the first choice to follow in her footsteps, but now, perhaps Melda’s future held something greater than simply being elected to the village’s council.
Tor grimaced, reality setting in. No, right about now, her future was an untimely death at the hands of a curse.
And it was all his fault.
“Well, this is marvelous,” Melda growled, looking up at the dust-caked ceiling. “I know you two,” she shot a pointed look at Engle and Tor, “probably spend your time playing on those death-trap twinetrees, or reading Cuentos, or tracking animals, or any number of ridiculous activities, but I have responsibilities.” Tor was surprised to see tears in her eyes. She turned toward the wall, sniffled, and wiped at something on her face before turning back around again. “I have people who need me.”
Tor wanted to counter that he had people who needed him, too—like Rosa, and maybe even his parents. But he knew Melda’s situation was different.
Engle shrugged. “No one will even notice I left.”
“I just don’t know how my mom will manage,” Melda said in a small voice. With a rocky breath, she faced Mrs. Libra, who had been pretending to leaf through a book, but whose ears had been pointed toward their conversation. “We’re going to be needing that map.”
* * *
Having come to the agreement that the three of them would not be making it back to school that day—or dinner, much to Engle’s displeasure—they enlisted Mrs. Libra’s cat to leave a note on Tor’s front door. They attached the paper to its back and hoped for the best.
Off on an adventure. Be back soon-ish.
Tor, Engle, and Melda
Once the feline had gone on its way, Mrs. Libra fetched the map. She took a rusty pin out of her mosslike hair and used it to tack the top of the parchment to the wall. The rest unrolled almost all the way to the floor.
Tor sucked in a deep breath of the hut’s sweet and sour scents. Sure, he had studied maps in his leadership classes before. Dozens, even. Part of a leader’s role was being familiar with one’s territory. Still, they had only studied local maps of Estrelle and its surrounding settlements. Beyond that, he only vaguely knew what the rest of Emblem Island looked like. Not many people in his village had traveled farther than the mountain ranges, and those who had told stories too wild to believe.
“Where on here is the witch’s castle?” Engle asked, eyes moving back and forth at lightning speed.
Mrs. Libra shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Melda blinked several times. “You…you don’t know?” One eye twitched, and she looked about ready to strangle something. “Aren’t you a know-all?”
“Why, yes. Of course I am.”
“So—and please do correct me if your title is vastly misleading—but aren’t you supposed to, you know…” She closed her fists. “Know it all?”
“Know-alls have geographical limits,” Mrs. Libra scoffed. “I know everything about this village, all the way to the edge of the forest. Outside of that is beyond my jurisdiction.”
Melda slapped her own forehead in a way that looked like it might have hurt. “Geographical limits?” she repeated.
“That’s what I said, please do pay attention.”
Tor spoke before Melda could say something they might all regret. “So, what can you tell us?”
The hermit pointed at the map. “The next know-all lives in the city of Zeal. Works as the queen’s adviser. Go there, and he’ll have more information for you.”
Engle snorted. “And just how do you suppose we manage that? I’ve been to Zeal, and you need a balloon ticket to get there.” He was right. The only way to get past the thick ring of mountains that surrounded the village was by holding one of the giant, vibrant balloons that were enchanted to land on the other side. Tor knew even if they did manage to get tickets, going over the mountains was not an option. The sightseer who guarded the perimeter of Estrelle would spot them right away—and alert their parents.
Mrs. Libra tapped the map, directing their attention to a long passageway Tor hadn’t noticed. “That’s where you’re wrong. A tunnel runs just beneath the mountain ring.” The know-all squinted, staring at the blue necklace Melda always wore. “Is that—” Melda put the pendant back inside her shirt before Mrs. Libra could finish her sentence.
Tor focused on the passageway beneath the mountains. “If there’s a tunnel, why do so many people use the balloons?”
The hermit pursed her thin lips, wrinkles sprouting out of her mouth like tree roots. “I suppose some people…though I can’t imagine who…find that specific mode of transportation…fun.” She said the last word with the disgust of someone talking about finding an insect in their food. “The real reason villagers don’t take the tunnel, of course, is that it’s not the safest of passages.”
What could be worse than holding on to a balloon string for dear life? Tor wondered. It was as if the know-all read his mind.
“Not well lit, for starters. How did they phrase it in that book?” She walked over to another corner, mumbling to herself, before spotting the right text and throwing it open. The hermit clicked her tongue until she found the right page. “Ah, yes, here it is. The tunnel is described as being in complete and total, absolute darkness.”
Melda and Tor turned to face Engle, whose sightseeing emblem gave him the ability to see not only long distances, but also in the dark. He shrugged. “I can get us through. But to do that, I’m going to need something.”
Mrs. Libra nodded. “Of course. I have a map of the tunnels somewhere…”
Engle blinked. “Oh.” He rubbed his stomach. “That’s good, but I was talking about the peppermint rolls I’ve been smelling since we got here.”
They left the hermit’s hut with a sack full of peppermint rolls and two maps. Mrs. Libra’s expression sunk back into a cavernous frown. “Never come again,” she said before slamming the door in Tor’s face.
Engle licked each of his fingers, having eaten three rolls already. “These are almost better than your dad’s, Tor,” he said. “No offense to him, of course. Or to you.” He looked pensive. “Or to your dad’s rolls…” Just a few yards into the forest, he stopped and gave Tor a serious look. “Should we turn around and get more?”
Melda sighed. “Only if you plan on eating all of them before anyone else can take a bite. There are three of us on this journey, you know.”
Engle ignored her and talked around another pastry. “Say, Melda, you have four brothers, right?”
“Five,” she said haughtily. “They’re quintuplets.”
He continued to chew with his mouth open. “They’re always sick, right?” Tor shot Engle a look. “What?” he said. “That’s what you told me.”
Tor wanted to dig a hole and climb into it.
Melda gave them both a mean look. “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, they are always sick. They have howling cough.” Tor winced. Howling cough was a particularly vile sickness that resulted in constant, high-pitched
coughing. “Now, if you’re done with your questions, I would appreciate some silence.” She looked down at the map, clearly dismissing them both.
Though Engle kept his mouth shut, the forest was far from silent. Rainbow-beaked toucans crooned, howling palm-sized chiquita monkeys shrieked, and orange-spotted toads croaked in their rich baritone. Rosa loved to venture into these same woods with Tor; she liked the music of it.
“We’re getting close,” Melda finally said, after almost an hour of walking. The sky had started to deepen into the darker blue of early afternoon, and the mountains loomed overhead, casting them in shade. A section of the roll of parchment was spread out in front of her face, her nose practically brushing the paint as she studied it carefully. Tor peered over her shoulder. According to the map, the entrance to the mountain’s tunnels was just a few feet farther…
Melda managed to scream once before falling completely out of view.
The Night Witch
Once upon a screaming white moon, a Night Witch was born.
As a child, she spoke to the willow trees, whispered to the garden bees, and had a smile so sweet it dripped golden honey. When she brushed her hair, starlight fell to the ground. When she passed by, flowers fell from her fingertips. And when she cried, it stormed.
So sweet she looked, her smile hid the darkness waiting behind it.
She had a gift never seen before. The power to kill with a single touch.
And kill she did.
One day, the girl emerged from her home, covered in blood, her father’s emblem on her skin. She walked through the village, barefoot, and never looked back. She traveled across the island, leaving only death in her wake, emblems appearing on her arms after each kill, the ones she had stolen from children in their beds and from the poor souls who found themselves alone on a dark night.
Hungry for more power, the girl spread curses like plagues, ones that poisoned rivers and fields full of crops, each new death adding to her collection of abilities.
Thus, the moonlit girl became the dark-haired witch.
Now, when she brushes her hair, ash falls to the ground. When she passes by, blood falls from her fingers. And each time she cries, a star falls from the sky.
