Curse of the Night Witch

by Alex Aster

  All of its contents went flying, including The Book of Cuentos, which slid across the floor, stopping only when it reached the dresser. One of the glass trinkets fell off its top and cracked into a thousand pieces.

  Tor sunk to the ground, hands running through his hair. He choked out something between a growl and a sob.

  And that was when he saw it. Not saw, really, because he had seen it countless times before. But this is when he truly noticed it—

  A small, silver symbol on the spine of the storybook: a key. Not just any key though; he had seen this same marking before…

  But where?

  “Melda!” Tor yelled, running out of the room. “I got it!”

  * * *

  Tor opened the map so forcefully, it ripped at the very top. He pointed to the symbol on The Book of Cuentos’s spine, then at a place in the large black hole that was the Shadows.

  Nothing important sat there—or so they had thought. Just the map’s legend, indicating which symbols represented geographical features, like mountains, woods, or rivers. The same one Melda had used to find Willow Wood.

  He pointed at a drawing of a key, positioned right next to the words “Map Key.”

  “This isn’t part of the map’s legend, it’s a place on the map,” he said, talking so quickly he wondered if his friends could understand him. “It’s a place, Melda. Look, the symbols are exactly the same.”

  Melda and Engle looked at the legend, then at the book’s cover, and nodded, but said nothing.

  Tor threw his arms over his head, exasperated. “Do you know what this means?”

  Engle sighed. “To be honest—no.”

  Tor rolled his eyes and pointed at the book’s spine yet again. “I’m willing to bet this symbol represents the person we’ve been following this entire time, the only person who met the Night Witch and survived. The storyteller.” He motioned toward the map. “And this is where they live.”

  Engle nodded. “All right, I get it. That key is their family crest or something, and now you’ve discovered it’s on the map, somewhere in the Shadows. But what good does that do us? This book is ancient, Tor, my own grandmother read it as a child. The storyteller’s dead.”

  Engle had a point. “I know. But maybe he has family who still lives there.” He motioned toward the key on the map. “People who might know how he managed to escape the Night Witch without dying. And—even better—maybe they know where to find her.” He turned to Melda. “I know it sounds absurd, but it’s a better bet than wandering around, hoping we’ll stumble upon the Night Witch’s lair. They might be able to lead us right to her!”

  “I don’t know…”

  He breathed out roughly. “Please, Melda. I know this is risky, and I might be completely wrong. And I know that I’m the one who got us into this mess in the first place.” Tor put a hand on her shoulder. “But please, trust me.”

  Melda looked down at the map, deep in thought. Her gaze soon drifted over to Engle’s arm.

  With a shaky breath, she nodded.

  Tor rushed back to his room to put on his new clothing. After he pulled on the pants, sweater, and cape, he stood in front of the full-length mirror, studying himself.

  It was not the clothes he looked at, though they were lovely. He saw the eye on his forearm, and the tiny black lines growing underneath it. He saw a bare wrist. One that, for his entire life, had worn two purple rings.

  He remembered his excitement at throwing his wish into the bonfire during Eve. Looking back, it was easy to see how wrong he was. Someone who had been born with everything—and had thrown it all away.

  But that wasn’t completely true.

  Even now, Tor could not bring himself to apologize for not liking his leadership classes or having another passion. What he did feel sorry for was letting his hatred of his mark overwhelm every other part of his life.

  On Eve, Tor’s world had been small. He had not known hunger. Or struggle. Or true life-or-death fear.

  Standing there, in a town that had been wiped clean of its inhabitants, emblems seemed almost insignificant. Unimportant. All Tor wanted was to be rid of the curse and to go home. He didn’t even care whether or not he completed his Grail, as long as his friends were safe.

  He turned away without gazing at his face. He did not have to see it to know he wore the expression of someone deeply afraid… A person about to venture into a lion’s den. Even if they managed to find the storyteller’s descendants, and then the Night Witch, Tor did not know how he, a markless twelve-year-old, was supposed to convince a creature that lived in storybooks, nightmares, and shadows to reverse their curse.

  But he would try.

  The Faceless Man

  Once upon a puddle of stars, a man was walking through a forest and happened upon a stream. He glanced down, only to see his reflection for the first time.

  “I’m divine,” he said.

  Now that he knew how handsome he was, he demanded to be married to someone equally as beautiful. He searched far and wide, in villages big and small. Before he knew it, he had searched them all. Yet, he found fault in every face except his own.

  So, he kept looking, until he found himself back in the forest in which he had started. There, he happened upon a woman, sitting near a river. Her skin was bright gold, her hair a starlight woven silver.

  “At last!” he yelled. “A person to match my splendor!”

  At that, the woman laughed. She said, “Fool, for my hand, you are no contender.”

  He startled. “But my face is perfect. The best you’ll ever find.”

  She shook her head and said, “I see not your face, but your soul, and it is rotten. You are self-absorbed, critical, and vain.” The woman sighed. “I bet your favorite word is your own name.”

  She dipped her golden hand into the water.

  “I curse you to wear every other man’s face.” And just like that, his features were erased.

  He became a shadow, without a mouth, eyes, or nose. A shape-shifting creature destined to hide in the darkness, waiting for another face to steal and add to his collection.

  That is how the first vanor came to be.

  A man punished for his own vanity.

  18

  The Storyteller

  The old woman waved them out of the house in a dusty old gown. “Good luck!” she screamed, swinging a dirty handkerchief through the air, though she had absolutely no idea where they were going. The storm had cleared overnight, and Tor took it as a good sign.

  There was no evidence of life in the forest beyond the town, not a breath of wind or a single scurrying creature, but Tor didn’t mind—for the silence meant they were getting closer. They walked for miles, Melda looking between the compass and map. With Engle rotting away, they had little room for error.

  Back at the mill, Melda had found the flowers she had collected near Cristal Town. Though wilted, they still wore their pastel shades. She wove the stems into a bracelet and tied it around her wrist…a reminder of the colorful world that waited for them, far, far away.

  But even with the flowers, the Shadows was a gloomy place. Tor felt covered in soot, though nothing fell from the sky. His feet dragged, heavier than ever, like he was trying to walk through water. He waved his arms in front of him, wondering if they were wrapped in some sort of transparent yet tangible smog he could not see. But his fingers encountered nothing.

  He shivered, a chill crawling down his spine. There was something eerie about not being able to physically feel malice in the air…like hearing a whisper and turning around to see no one there.

  “We’re getting close,” Melda said after a couple of hours, her voice full of relief. Not a moment too soon, either. Engle’s curse had slowed him down; every step looked like it took great effort. Tor handed him the bag of food, and watched Engle take small bites of cheese the old woman had gif
ted them. No one needed it more than he did.

  Tor looked over Melda’s shoulder. Before leaving, they had tried their best to put locations in the Shadows on the map, determining distances based on other places they’d traveled. It had taken them roughly the same time to walk from Garth to Willow Wood as it had the tower to the mill, so they used their fingers to measure the distances and added both stops to the parchment.

  According to their markings, the key symbol was southeast of the mill, halfway into the Shadows.

  But what if their guesses were wrong? They didn’t have watches. And time on this side of Emblem Island seemed to move differently.

  “If this house exists, it should be right up ahead,” Melda whispered.

  Tor cracked his knuckles in anticipation. He knew he was right about this, about the storyteller’s residence. He had to be. And even if the author’s house was abandoned, at the very least it would offer some sort of haven from the dark, thick atmosphere, and a place for Engle to rest.

  His friend looked ahead, eyes half closed. His expression was blank. Was there nothing for miles?

  Was Tor wrong?

  Doubts raided his head and fear froze in his chest. He came to a stop.

  If he was wrong, they would have wasted the very last bit of their lifelines traveling to a place that didn’t exist. They would be stuck in the center of the Shadows, walking blindly. How long would Engle last that way?

  Tor did something he had been avoiding. He looked down at his palm. The brightest part of the rainbow lines was the very end. They didn’t have days anymore.

  They had hours.

  Had Tor wasted theirs?

  “Tor,” Engle croaked from up ahead. He ran forward to meet him—

  —and froze. The trees ended abruptly at a pair of gates made of twisting metal. They formed a familiar symbol—the same key from the spine of The Book of Cuentos.

  Tor exhaled deeply.

  He really was right. He had figured it out, without anyone’s help.

  They still had a chance.

  Melda pushed at the gates gently, with a single finger, and they swung open with a creak loud enough to wake the dead.

  If anyone was home, they certainly knew they had company.

  * * *

  Beyond the gates sat a long, winding path, and behind that, a house large enough to be described as a palace. It was crafted out of dark brick, with Gothic, pointed windows, the shimmer of stained glass within them.

  Tor squinted. He could have sworn he saw the glass move.

  No, he shook his head. It must have been a trick of the light.

  The front door stood as tall as the one in Aurelia’s castle, though this one had no handle. It didn’t even have so much as a knocker.

  Tor pounded his fist against the wood, but it barely made a sound, and soon his knuckles were raw.

  Engle stepped up to give it a try, just as the entryway flung open.

  A small boy with large, blinking eyes and hair dark as night stood there. He looked frozen for a moment, startled, then turned and ran down the hallway.

  Melda and Tor looked at each other, wondering what to do next. He shrugged and followed the boy inside. Now that they knew someone lived there, Tor was not about to turn away just because they were technically uninvited.

  The ceilings reached fifty feet high, crafted out of shining obsidian. The floors were a gray granite that seemed to change color based on the angle of light shining down. These were rare, expensive materials, hardly ever used in making residences that did not belong to a queen or ruler.

  But it was the walls Tor stopped to stare at.

  On either side of the hall hung dozens of large, expertly woven pieces of fabric.

  “Storytelling tapestries,” Tor whispered in awe. They were precious, extremely hard to make—hanging only in the nicest of libraries or homes. A village was lucky to have one in its collection, yet this house had fifty.

  Tor stood beneath one that featured a snake with a head at each end. It slithered around the textile, hissing on its way, until the story started over again, with a young, happy couple who had just gotten married.

  “‘The Hydroclops,’” Melda said from somewhere behind him. “The first monster myth.”

  The next tapestry held a ship stopped in a glimmering sea, a beautiful face waiting among the waves. She floated with grace, and turned to look right at Tor with purple gem eyes, smiling wickedly. He kept walking, passing by a giant eating a man in a single gulp, then a woman crying into a river. Then, a girl with silver hair and a boy who looked entirely gold, reaching to touch hands—but never meeting. The rest of the books’ stories followed, played out on the pieces of fabric in vibrant colors.

  When the tales were done, each of the stories began anew.

  “Who are you?” An angry voice sounded down the hall. Tor turned around. The little boy was gone, an older man having taken his place. “What are you doing in my house?”

  Melda stepped forward. “We were let in by what must be your grandson.” She cleared her throat. “We were hoping to speak with you.”

  The old man did not move an inch. “Be that as it may, I have no interest in speaking with you. Now, get out.”

  “But—”

  “Out!”

  No. They didn’t get this far to turn back now. “We have traveled for a week, across the worst of Emblem Island. We have risked everything to find the Night Witch.” Tor took a step closer to the old man, chin high. “I’m going to put an end to her darkness.”

  The man’s hunched-over body went still. There was silence.

  Then, he began to laugh, the sound echoing through the hall. “Oh, really? Because I bet you don’t even know where she is.” He glared at Tor. “I bet that’s why you’re here.”

  “What is this guy, a know-all?” Engle groaned.

  “No,” the man responded. “I just know a blustering fool when I see one. So determined to find something, you don’t stop to think of what you’ll do when it’s right in front of you.” His jaw locked. “Just like my great-great-uncle.”

  Melda stepped forward. “The storyteller?”

  The man nodded sharply.

  “But he found the witch,” Melda continued. “He lived. He wrote about her.”

  The man barked out another laugh, this one full of spit. “And got himself killed for it!” All at once, his expression became serious. He looked to the floor, grimacing. “Got us all cursed.” That was when Tor noticed the marking on the man’s neck, an eye just like the one he had on his arm.

  Tor pulled up his sleeve. “I don’t know what yours did to you, but our curse shortened our lifeline.” He cleared his throat, trying to steady his voice. “I will not stop until I find her, I promise you. And when I do, I will make her put an end to this. You’ll be rid of your curse, we all will.” He swallowed. “But to do that, you need to help us.”

  The man lifted a hand and pressed a single finger against the eye on his neck. At that moment, the little boy scurried back into the hallway, and Tor saw he had the same marking on his own skin. He rushed to hug his grandfather’s leg, and the old man sighed, the sound full of foggy sorrow.

  Then, he nodded.

  * * *

  “My name is Etler Key.” They sat at a dining table that was big enough to fit twelve people, drinking tea that tasted of sunflower seeds and warmed Tor to the bone. It seemed to be helping Engle, who was already on his third cup. “My great-great-uncle, Vero Key, was an explorer. He sought to see every wonder that inhabited Emblem Island in order to document it in his journal. He started west, then traveled all the way toward home, encountering various…creatures on his way. The last stop, he said, would be the very edge of the island, where the Night Witch was rumored to live.

  “And he did make it there…but exactly what he encountered, no one knows for c
ertain.”

  “What do you mean?” Melda said. “Her description is in the book, it’s the last story.”

  Etler continued as if she had not said a word. “When he returned home, it was as a different man. He spent months alone in his study, writing stories based on the monsters he had seen, crafting them into a book. Rarely spoke a word about the witch, except for the ones he wrote. He had been cursed to forget practically everything, besides what he included in The Book of Cuentos, and her location. That, he wrote on a map and was insistent that every generation memorize it. Why, I do not know. But that same curse weakened him until he died just a handful of years later.

  “The curse survived. A variation of it has been passed down his bloodline, leaving his descendants unable to leave this house…why? So that we can never tell a soul about the Night Witch’s location. Not unless they happen upon us first.”

  Tor straightened. “So you do know where she is?” he asked, eyes wide in excitement.

  The old man groaned, then slammed his fists against the table, making his silverware jump. “Did you not hear a word I said? If you try to find the Night Witch, she will never let you live—not if you’ve seen her true form. She will kill or curse you further, just as she did Vero!”

  Etler was right, of course. If his story was true, then the Night Witch had gone to great lengths to keep her location a secret. She would no doubt eliminate any threat to that, Tor knew.

  “I’m willing to take that risk,” he said, sounding more confident than he felt. What other choice did he have? His lifeline had been reduced to a tiny stub. It was too late to turn back, even if he wanted to. He could only go forward.

  The old man nodded, solemn. He had a gleam of something in his eye—maybe respect, perhaps hope. Before Tor could figure it out, that glimmer vanished. “Walk east until the dirt turns black. Then, travel north until the sky turns gray. Finally, cross the lake. That is where you’ll find her.”

  “Thank you,” Tor said, standing from the table.