Winter, Faerstice

by Kevin Lawler

  “Hey stranger, didn’t think I’d see you again,” Ipsy said.

  Winter just looked at her.

  “What happened?” asked Ipsy.

  “Agnes,” said Winter.

  Ipsy’s tone changed. “You saw her?” Ipsy pulled Winter away from the line and towards the grey-haired lady. “Cal, she says she saw Agnes.”

  “I didn’t just see her. She attacked me. She tried to kill me. She threw me in the back of an ambulance...”

  “Shh,” Cal said.

  “She killed my dog,” Winter said.

  Cal and Ipsy looked at each other. Ipsy’s bag was stuffed, with the slick silver foil of a ration sticking out of the top of it. Cal was in outdoor wear.

  “We should go,” said Cal.

  Far overhead a helicopter flew past. Its underside was barely visible in the sun. The sound of the propeller was like a tarp beating against a car on the highway.

  “What do you think? News chopper?” Ipsy asked.

  Cal was looking up. “No, it’s military. Rescue. Or other.”

  “I’m going with you,” Winter said, “After we check on my sister.”

  On the way out of the camp they were joined by a pleasant blonde woman who was carrying a bird on her finger. The bird was carmine red, and green and blue and yellow. Winter had never seen anything like it before in person.

  “Meadow, could you hold off on that till we’re farther away?” Cal asked.

  “Oh, it’s fine,” Meadow said, “This is the least crazy thing these people have seen in days. Sprig needs to eat.” The bird took flight from her hand.

  Meadow looked at Winter. She had kind eyes. She wore crystals for earrings, dangling green tubes with flat sides. “Do you want a granola bar?” she asked. With the bird gone she dug into her bag and pulled out a chewy chocolate chip granola bar in a wrapper, which she handed to Winter. Winter took it. It felt hot through the package and the chocolate chips had to be melted inside. Winter unwrapped it. Yup. Still tasted good. Winter chewed on the oats and looked around for the bird. It was plucking flies out of the air. There seemed to be a lot more around since the flood.

  There was nothing at Miss Miri’s except Miss Miri, crying over the mess of her house. She hadn’t seen Kayla but she promised to let Winter know if she did. She seemed suspicious of Winter’s new companions.

  “This isn’t good,” Winter said, “Kayla was supposed to hide here. We have to check at my place.”

  “What? Are you crazy?” Ipsy asked, “That’s where Agnes was. She’ll be checking back there. We should just leave.”

  Winter was silent. “I’m not going to help you with your seal,” she said. “We’re going to my house. It won’t take long. Unless you think you can find someone else to help you in time.”

  Winter shut the door to Kayla’s room and sloshed up the stairs out of the water.

  “Winter,” Meadow said.

  Winter didn’t hear her.

  “Winter,” Meadow said again.

  Winter wandered into her parents’ bedroom. Her mother’s bedroom now. It felt strange being in there, since she wasn’t supposed to be, and now she was going to loot it. First Winter took her shoes off and wiped her feet dry on the carpet. Nobody was going to use it again anyway. She made her way to the closet and opened its slatted white doors.

  “I know it’s hard. But it’s not safe here, we have to go,” Ipsy shouted from downstairs.

  From off the top shelf Winter pulled a medium-sized box. Inside was the antique knife her father had given her—long and double-sided. It was in this box, in its sheath, so that Kayla wouldn’t get to it.

  She went back down the stairs barefoot toward her room.

  “Get your things, but she’s right, we can’t stay here,” Cal said to her as she passed.

  Winter made an enraged face at her. Winter went into her room. She opened her bottom drawer, all her socks were floating in a pool of water. She grabbed her pink backpack and tipped it over to let the water out. Then she put some soaked socks and clothes in it. It would be fine. She grabbed a better pair of shoes from the rack. Her “nicer” shoes had given her blisters on the walk across town. She pulled the wad of Etsy money from the hiding place in her sewing kit and dropped it in. She left the room and sloshed out the front door to be out of the house. The sun had disappeared behind the houses. The other women were coming out after her.

  Agnes. Agnes did this.

  Winter’s thought was interrupted by pair of men coming into her yard. They were in regular clothes but they had pistols in holsters on their hips. There was a man with a goatee and a second skinny man with a gallon ziploc bag stuffed full of assorted gold jewelry.

  “What are you doing at this house?” the man in front with the goatee said.

  “It’s my house,” said Winter.

  “Your house? And the girl inside? Who was that?”

  “That’s my sister.”

  The man was looking at the strange women who were traveling with Winter, clearly suspicious.

  “Maybe so, but you’re going to need to stick around to explain that one to the police. That wasn’t no typhoon.”

  Winter looked back at Ipsy, Cal, and Meadow. They needed to get out of here in case Agnes returned. Winter looked back at the man. Their hesitancy was making him more suspicious.

  “First off, this is my neighborhood, and if you lived anywhere close you’d realize that,” Winter said.

  The goateed man’s face changed. “I only live a few blocks over...”

  “Second of all, we have somewhere to be.”

  “Where do you have to go in the middle of a typhoon?”

  “Nunya? Where’d you get all that gold jewelry?”

  The man unbuttoned the strap over his pistol and pulled it and held it aimed at the ground.

  “Listen,” he said, “I don’t know who you are. But there’s a little girl in there with her guts hanging all over the room. I seen it, it breaks my heart. And you’re going to stick around, at least long enough to explain it. This isn’t going to happen in my neighborhood.”

  “Not going to happen friend,” Ipsy said, “I don’t know any way to tell you this, but unless you buzz off, this isn’t going to end well for you.”

  The man aimed the gun at Ipsy.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, “Don’t tell me what is and isn’t going to happen.”

  Ipsy folded her arms.

  “Mind pointing that thing somewhere else?” she asked.

  The man considered it and began to draw his aim away.

  “Let me tell you how this—” he started, but Ipsy quickly tensed her hand into a claw and there was an explosion that knocked the gun out of his hand. It was loud. Real loud. The man was screaming. The gun skidded across the concrete driveway towards Winter’s feet. The man held out a palm without any fingers, like the discarded bottom of a crab. He grabbed at his wrist with his other good hand and bled all over it.

  Winter looked down at what remained of the gun. The front of the weapon where the grip had been had been rent open. It looked like all of the bullets had fired simultaneously.

  “Winter? Is that your real name?” Topple asked.

  “Yes,” said Winter, pausing. “Is Topple yours?”

  “Of course not.” Topple turned away to go work on something else in the camp. She had carrot-red hair that made her conspicuous no matter what she was doing.

  Two marble-colored greyhounds were walking through. Meadow’s bee-eater, which had been in the tree, took flight and alighted on the back of the passing male. She sat there regally as the dog walked through. The dog didn’t seem to notice. Louisa was the other woman who had joined them at the camp, and the dogs were hers. She was coming up behind to talk to Winter.

  “There’s not much to a seal,” Louisa started, “It’s one of the easier spells. So just relax and stay focused.” She moved her eyebrows a lot as she spoke, and her black curls shook around her neck to follow the motions of her head.
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  The sound of hacking came through the camp. Topple had a hatchet and was gathering low-hanging branches.

  “It may be new for you though because it’s a group spell. Try to follow the group and don’t do your own thing, if you can.”

  It took them a while to get ready. Finally the fire was going in the center with some good logs and Winter could feel that they were going to begin soon.

  Cal called them together. “Let’s go,” she said, “Time to make good on your promise, Winter. Louisa, when you’re ready.”

  The other five women were forming a circle around the fire pit. There was a space for Winter between Ipsy and Meadow. Meadow reached out her hand and smiled. Winter held hands in the circle and kind of looked around, feeling foolish.

  Louisa started. There was mumbling. Winter wasn’t sure what to do, so she tried mumbling herself, not very well.

  “Wait wait wait,” Louisa said, stopping and looking up. Louisa let go of the hands next to her and looked at Winter. They were all looking at Winter.

  “Not like that,” Louisa said, “Wait for the right moment. Let’s start over.” She took up the hands of the women next to her.

  The sound began again and Winter waited this time to not come in too early. The chanting continued around her. Winter could sense something. She let the chanting play past her.

  “Winter,” Louisa said, meaning for Winter to start.

  Louisa’s prompt was jarring. Winter imitated the sounds they were making. The chanting continued. The others had closed their eyes and so eventually she closed hers as well. It was dusk and so with her eyes closed it seemed pitch black. The repetition of the words had a calming effect, and Winter was thankful for the moment of peace. She couldn’t help it, her mind wandered into daydreams, more vivid this time: The spring of a high dive as she leapt up; Her ex-boyfriend, in her car; A fight with her sister. From outside Winter could hear the rising murmur of a concerned voice over the chanting, but the stream of images did not stop. The chanting was farther and farther away. She thought she felt her grip go as if she were falling backwards. The images flashed by.

  Winter saw a woman with blue hair, sneaking through a high-rise office building. The woman seemed hyper-real: every detail was crisper, and the contrast impossibly high, as if Winter were there and then more.

  The blue-haired woman held her hand against the door frame to shut it more quietly. As she rounded one of the hallways, she was taken from behind by an arm coming around her neck. Her belly jutted out where a knifepoint had been placed against her back and she was dragged kneck-first down the hallway.

  Winter saw two men in military uniforms.

  “The ‘H’ stands for ‘Hexenforschung’—witchcraft research,” said the British man.

  “This is nonsense,” said the American.

  “Maybe,” said the British, “And it may be cover for something else entirely. It’s not our place to dismiss it on speculative grounds. They seem to have an interest in it, and so now properly we have an interest in it, nonsense or not.”

  Winter could see Agnes, knife in one hand, the bottom of her red slip in the other, dipping the dress into an open and bleeding wound in Kayla’s middle. She was soaking up the blood with her slip, dyeing it; then she put her slip down and reached into the open midsection with her bare hand, searching for something. Kayla gasped for air.

  Winter saw in the crook of a branch a cup-shaped nest about the length of a pinky, and on top of it a hummingbird brooding, her needle-shaped beak peering this way and that.

  The hummingbird was brilliantly colored, shining greens and golds, like one of Winter’s dad’s fishing lures, and with a hot pink and fuchsia neck that stood out from all the rest of her body.

  The hummingbird dipped from the branch to a nearby flowerbush. The bird moved from flower to flower instantaneously, her head steady and inquisitive, and her sides a blur. She darted her long, slender bird tongue into the tube of the flower as she hovered, doubling the length of her beak. The air was filled with bass from the rapid wingbeats.

  Winter came back to holding hands in the middle of the circle. All of them were staring at her. She remembered the images of Kayla and squeezed her eyes closed again for a moment. Then opened them.

  The fire was burning in front of her feet. The five women were looking at her. Cal was searching her especially.

  “She’s back,” Cal said. Winter felt the hands on either side drop from hers.

  “Did it work?” Winter asked.

  “No,” Cal said.

  “You hosed it,” said Topple.

  “The seal didn’t work,” Ipsy said, “And we’re all in for a brutal headache tomorrow for the failure. We’ll probably lose the entire day.”

  “I can’t deal with this vision bleed-out, I don’t need this,” said Meadow.

  “You could see?” Winter asked.

  “We could see enough of it,” said Meadow, “I am sorry for your sister but I don’t want to experience any more of that. And Reveille was our friend...”

  “If she can’t even seal she’s not going to be much use to us,” Louisa said, “How weak is she that she can’t even seal? She may barely register. That’s going to be a drag on us. The old seal is fading and Agnes could find us at any moment.”

  Ipsy looked at Cal, “She already turned us down, I don’t know how reliable she’s going to be anyway.”

  Cal considered this.

  “We risked encountering Agnes for this, and she let us down,” Ipsy said.

  “Wait,” said Winter, “Um, Agnes didn’t kill me, so I can’t be that weak, right?”

  “Luck,” said Ipsy.

  “Don’t discount luck,” said Cal, “Napolean selected for it in his generals.”

  “What luck? Her town is under three feet of mud,” said Louisa.

  “The vision itself is a good signifier. She may not be completely useless,” said Cal.

  “Reveille never had an issue,” Topple said.

  “Reveille wasn’t this green either,” said Cal, “And she’s not coming back, so let it go.”

  “I can do this. Let me try again,” Winter said.

  Cal sat quiet for an uncomfortably long time. “We’ll get her a familiar and she’ll try again,” Cal said. There were groans.

  “That could take ages,” Louisa said.

  “And it could happen right away. You don’t know,” said Cal.

  “Come on, Cal, you know that’s not true,” Louisa said.

  Cal was silent for a moment.

  “We all saw the hummingbird. That must be a portent,” Cal said, “She can try for the hummingbird. We’ll get her to the nearest ceremonial pool and she can take water walk. It’s not a terribly far journey.”

  Meadow smiled at Winter. “Haaa, the kiddie pool.”

  “That’s a far cry from laying low, Cal,” Ipsy said, “We’ll have to connect through a hub.”

  “Better chance a hub now than run around exposed later,” Cal said.

  “You haven’t even asked me,” Winter said.

  “Asked you? If you can’t help with a seal you’re dead weight. Without a familiar you’ll be asking us if you can stick around to mooch off our seals. That is, if we can find yet another witch before we all get killed,” said Cal.

  They went to bed angry. There wasn’t a bedroll for Winter and so she slept right on the grass. In the middle of the night she was awakened by screaming. In the dark Winter heard:

  “Meadow. Meadow,” Louisa whispered, jostling Meadow awake, “You were having night terrors again.”

  Winter went back to sleep.

  Chapter 5

  When they went through the first tree the weather changed from sunny before entering the tree, to chilly and cloudy, and the empty forest path they were on ran through a light snow that seemed to be a few days old.

  Winter’s footsteps pushed the twigs into the dirt.

  “Cal’s really good at it,” Meadow said, “She can find a tree from miles away. “r />
  “I can learn?” asked Winter.

  “Oh yeah,” said Meadow, “That one you can learn and practice. It’s not like being a seeress. All witches can do it to some degree. You probably remember a glimmer of a time when you passed a certain tree in a forest...”

  Winter thought. “I do remember that.” It was a weird moment that had always stuck with her. “I was in the woods once and felt like I was being drawn towards something.”

  “That’s it. You just work on it. It takes practice. Lots of practice. I have to be right on top of one to tell because I’ve been lazy about it. Cal has spent a lot of time in the woods. So she’s good at it. She can even sense certain things about the portal. That’s another thing you have to be careful about: most of them lead to the rest of the network like this one, but some of them are one-way and go to who-knows-where, and you won’t know until you get better at the tree road. We don’t know who made the trees or how they got there. You should be careful. There are stories of witches disappearing. Fortunately regular people can’t go through. Unless you take them.”

  Meadow rifled through her purse. “You should bring this,” she said, handing over a tiny feather. Winter took it and looked it.

  “This came off of Thistle,” Meadow said, “Reveille’s hummingbird. Her familiar. You keep it. Reclaiming Thistle is your best shot at getting a familiar fast. Getting a familiar is your best shot at focusing your effort enough to complete the seal. Sometimes witches can ‘inherit’ familiars in this way. Reveille let Thistle go before she left because she had a feeling she wasn’t coming back.”

  Winter placed the feather in a small pocket of her bag where she wouldn’t lose it.

  Cal dropped back to talk to Winter.

  “We’re going to one of the many side hubs,” Cal said, “All the major ones seem to have been destroyed long ago. I can see why. Even the side hubs are still dangerous. So be on guard.”

  The side hub was in disrepair. It was built into a sandstone cliff-face like the Anasazi ruins Winter had read about in school. There were long walkways running the length of the mountainside, stacked on top of each other like stairs but too tall for Winter to climb up to the next path. Winter looked down over the side to the next lower path. It looked like she’d twist her ankle jumping down there.