by Kevin Lawler
There was no snow here but it was freezing cold, and must have been just after dawn.
The ledge were huge and long, and as they rounded the side of the mountain someone coming the other way came into view, two walkways up.
The witch stood on a ledge overlooking them. She had wavy black hair and wore a black miniskirt. Behind her stalked a tall, pink flamingo. The flamingo shivered. It had snow from somewhere on its back.
“Aren’t you cold in that miniskirt, Violet?” Topple asked.
“Yaren’t you yold yin yat yiniskirt, Yiolet?” Violet said. She shouted down from the ledge, “I know you’re butthurt ‘cause I murked your friend.” She twisted her fists under her eyes to rub away imaginary tears. “There wasn’t even anything good inside her. We were all sad. Like we had opened a loot box and got junk. You guys look like more junk. Oh, and you brought a young one! She looks real tough. Nice addition to the team.” Violet made an OK sign with her hand and a moron face.
She followed this with a series of mewling noises that could only be interpreted as derision. When she had finished mewling she threw a rock aimed hard at Winter. Winter stepped out of the way and turned. The flat brown rock spun past.
Violet reached into her handbag. She pulled out an oblong gem of pink quartz that she held between her thumb and forefinger. The gem expanded in both directions into a crystalline javelin and she grasped it with her hand. Violet reared back and threw it into the crowd of witches. The witches scattered and the javelin splintered against the ground.
Violet threw a couple more lances in quick succession, trying to guess where the witches were going to scatter. Meadow changed her mind and started holding her ground, moving only as Violet threw, and Violet took the opportunity to lock on to the slower moving target. Violet threw and Meadow dodged, and again, and then Violet feinted and threw in the path of Meadow’s dodge. Meadow misstepped and the lance caught her in the thigh. There was a clattering noise as the javelin caught bone, and it shattered as Meadow cried out and dropped to the floor.
Meadow scooted on the floor, trying to move out of the line of fire. Cal and Louisa grabbed her by the neck of the blouse and pulled her against the wall, where the angle was bad for Violet to throw. Winter sheltered in close under the wall. In the open wound in Meadow’s legs were purple shards and fragments, sparkling.
Violet moved along her ledge to flank them with the javelins, but she was having a hard time getting another clear shot.
The javelins stopped coming. Violet closed her eyes and was saying something because her lips were moving. She made slow movements with her arms and her hair began to rise. The air suddenly smelled like the inside of a freezer, and from nowhere there were the sounds of sheering and clinking. Around Violet formed a constellation of sharp icicles, which appeared and then reoriented itself to aim the points at the witches below.
Violet was making too many icicles for her to possibly miss. Winter grabbed at the ground for a handful of pebbles and threw them at Violet, but it didn’t seem to help. The spell continued. Violet drew her leg up and raised her hands above her head as the cloud of icicles around her grew in density.
Louisa gave a shout, Winter hadn’t noticed her, and as she did so the ledge on which Violet had been perched sheared from the walkway. The flamingo flew back from the crumbling ledge but Violet was carried away with it, sliding on her back down the wall to hit hard on the walkway, and then rolling, rolling off the walkway with enough momentum to carry her down the next wall, where she flopped not far from the women were, unmoving. The swarm of icicles, still hovering, dropped from the air.
They waited defensively and when it was clear she wasn’t going anywhere they went over to look at her. Violet was unconscious with her eyes open and staring off the side of the mountain. Louisa stepped up to her and planted her foot on Violet’s chest, causing Violet’s head to lilt to the side. Violet’s chest rose and fell under Louisa’s planted foot.
“We’d better gag her, or when she wakes up she’ll never shut up,” Cal said, “Get her arms too, of course.” They started looking through their gear.
Meadow was coming closer, dragging her leg in pain. When she got to Violet she looked at her and slapped her across the face. Violet’s head rolled to look at the rock ceiling far above them.
“I can’t believe we got her,” Ipsy said.
“Yes, and now she’s going to help us seal,” Cal said.
Up close Winter could see the details in her face. She had black liner all around the outside of her eyes, and orange eyeshadow that made her eyes look like they were aflame. She stared unfocused at the ceiling.
Louisa moved out of the way for Ipsy.
Ipsy fashioned a gag for Violet out of couple of camisoles she was carrying around. One of the shirts went in her mouth and the other she tied around her head to keep the first one in.
“Isn’t that a little gross?” Louisa asked, “Are those clean?”
“Does it matter?” Ipsy asked. “Here, hold her forward so I can put these on her.” Ipsy pulled a pair of black metal handcuffs out of her bag.
Louisa looked at Ipsy.
“Could you hold her forward?” Ipsy asked.
Louisa helped Ipsy get the handcuffs on Violet. Then she put a foot back on Violet’s chest.
They went through her stuff. Topple pulled a satchel from off Violet’s back and the strap up behind the gag and over her head. She opened the flap and dug inside briefly before making a disoriented face. She turned the satchel upside down and out fell a clump of flowers, fronds, moss, and other forms of plant matter.
The smells were overwhelming, at least as bad as when Winter left all the bottles of candle scent open in her room. There were flowers that smelled sweet and flowers that smelled like rotting meat. Winter felt a wretch coming on.
Cal got in close despite the smell. She seemed unphased.
Topple held her nose. “Out picking daisies?” she asked.
“No, probably not,” Cal said picking apart the clump of plant matter.
“She’s a pharmakis too,” Topple said to Winter, still pinching her nose.
Cal pulled out a plant and placed it to the side. “Purple glory of the snow.” She grabbed a hearty looking clump of black grass. “Likely a mountain sedge. Probably from some unknown peak. These are all rare alpine plants, at least the ones I can identify are. High-altitude. But there are jungle plants here, too. Most of these plants have limited use in healing, let’s put it that way. Violet may have been sent out to collect reagents for Isobel, and who knows what she’s up to.”
Violet jerked awake and thrashed and yelled into her gag. Louisa pushed a foot hard into her chest. Winter rushed over to help. Topple & Ipsy had gotten there first and were trying to hold her down. Winter grasped for one of her kicking legs and got her arms around it. The other leg was kicking her in the arm. Louisa must’ve grabbed some injured spot on Violet’s cuffed forearm because Violet screamed and writhed and then was still, sweating, and convulsing lightly now and then as Louisa applied pressure to wound. Louisa stood her up, holding her by arm and yanking her by the hair to get her to move. Violet was coming around to the idea of marching as Louisa wanted. She was walking gingerly, maybe more injuries from the fall.
“We’ll get her to the other side and then she can help us reseal,” Cal said, “We can’t dilly-dally in the hub.”
Violet looked back at Winter with wild eyes and said something but Winter couldn’t hear it through the gag.
It took a long time to get to the tree with Violet and Meadow injured as they were. When they got to the tree it dumped them out into a forest on the side of a sloping mountain. Going through trees was kind of like coming in or out of a store. Every time she went through the first thing Winter noticed was the change in the air she was breathing, how hot or cold it was in her lungs.
On the other side they made Violet help with the seal. Violet was still cuffed but standing in the circle. Louisa held her by the injured arm. Since
Winter couldn’t help but needed to be close to be sealed, she stood outside the circle with a knife-tip against Violet’s back. They took the gag out of her mouth for the ceremony.
“This one can’t even seal?” she had asked, “I’m going to kill you, you know. I’m going to split open all of your heads. Have you ever seen a watermelon fall from a window?”
Otherwise she didn’t make a lot of fuss. Cal suspected it was because her seal was fading and she didn’t want Agnes to know where she was either. When it was over Ipsy put the gag back in.
With the seal over Meadow sat down on the ground to inspect her wound.
“Aaaa,” she said in pain.
Cal kneeled down next to her and turned the top of her leg this way and that to inspect.
“Unfortunately, Violet didn’t harvest anything useful. So I’m going to need to forage for something around her to help Meadow.”
Winter looked inside of the gash as Cal inspected. The purple shards inside sparkled like a vein of ore.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Meadow asked. She winced. “Though painful. Is it fluorite, Violet?”
“Floor what?” Violet said into her gag.
“Anyway,” Meadow said. She winced again.
Cal came and escorted Winter and Ipsy out of earshot of the hostage. “I thought we were all going to be able to go with you to the pool but it looks like that’s not possible now. You’re going to have to go on your own. This is what you need to know for the pool. It’s a test of dedication. It can reward you with a familiar if you do well, and it can punish you by withholding one if you do poorly. We think. That’s all we know about it, and it’s rumored to work. Afterwards we can take you back to Meadow’s house, where the Reveille’s old hummingbird is kept. If you did well then maybe the bird will imprint on you. If not then I guess we can wait around. We have Violet in captivity in the meantime, so the seal is taken care of, but this is not a permanent solution. Our feet are holding open the teeth of a bear trap, and eventually it must snap shut. We need you to get a familiar so we can seal on our own.”
“Don’t worry about the pool,” Louisa said, “I did when I was younger, when I was having trouble finding my familiars. We don’t even know for sure if it helps it really. I didn’t find it so bad. Icky, maybe. My pool was filled with algae. But you can’t count on that being your trial”
Cal continued. “Ipsy will take you as far as the Old Line. It’s a straight shot from there to the one-way tree to the pool, and the pool is in the direction back. The pool won’t hurt you, do what it says. With Meadow in this state and us keeping watch on Violet, it’s risky sending Ipsy with you at all.”
Winter gathered her pack as Ipsy waited on her. Winter had scarcely slung her bag over her shoulder before Ipsy started walking her in a direction out of the camp.
“What’s the Old Line?” Winter asked.
“A railway the miners used to move gems and tools back and forth. The car runs without fuel. It’s one of the pieces of leftover junk from when people were more serious about this magic thing. This one still works, miraculously. Supposedly. I haven’t been on it. But I’ve seen some of the similar leftovers. They’re usually about what you’d expect from a machine out of last century. Egg beaters and flashlights. They built what they could and then they used stones or magic to fill in the gaps. The result is not that impressive anymore. At one time it may have been great. The real miracle is that any of it still works at all. I don’t think it sees much use anymore, the mines there are practically empty.”
“There are miners out here?”
Ipsy took a deep breath. “They’re. It’s.” She was having trouble phrasing it. She waved it off. “We’re not the only ones out here. There are a lot of ‘adventure-seeking’ men too. Real frontier types. Gross, basically. Couldn’t hack it back home. Don’t tell them that. We need to stay friendly. We make money on the side guiding them through the trees. Some of them are okay.”
After hours of hiking they arrived at the station. There was a long covered stop with a triangular roof and a stone floor where the track curved by to meet. Farther down was a stairwell and then a ramp hewn from the local rock, both leading to empty air above the track. The train was nowhere to be found. The tracked stretched out in both directions farther than they could see.
“I don’t see the car,” said Winter.
“No kidding,” said Ipsy. Winter was thinking. When she turned Ipsy was already walking away.
“Wait, what am I supposed to do?” Winter called out at her.
Ipsy heard her and turned to walk backward, shrugging and opening her palms before turning around again.
“Great,” Winter said. She sat her bag down to wait.
With Ipsy gone there was no one else there. The birdcalls came from the trees. They all sounded strange to her. Winter wondered if that was because these were special birds, isolated from the normal world, or if they were just regular birds, and she was projecting. She guessed that was her punishment for never having any interest in birds.
She frowned. She had five new sketchy friends and not much choice in the matter. They mostly seemed concerned about themselves. But what they needed was helpful for Winter also. It was like a pact Winter had been locked into. It seemed to her like an unnatural thing. This was not how she made friends. She was being forced to get along.
Winter picked up her bag and started along the side of the track. She remembered the cars backed up along the highway leading out of Claremont. There were no horns here, only birds.
She walked until sundown. She felt the first light raindrops on her forearms. Should she take shelter? She hadn’t considered that possibility. In the night maybe it was safer for her to keep walking, and then she could hide and catch up on sleep during the day. She kept walking through light rain until she was properly soaked, and then it didn’t matter. Winter felt the heavy shirt sagging on her, chafing as she walked. She grabbed it and squeezed the water out of it. Water from her world or another? And the Sun for that matter? Whichever would push the rainclouds away. In the dark she heard the clanging of metal.
Chapter 6
The train wasn’t going anywhere and it had been easy for Winter to get inside the caboose and out of the rain. The floor was pieced together from nice and sanded but irregular timber. There was a bank of empty rusted lockers against the wall. At the top of the caboose, where the wall met the ceiling, there was a recess set with a yellow stone putting off amber light like a low wattage bulb. The stone was shaped like the vial in a carpenter’s level. Around the recess were the remnants of where a sconce had been broken away, and the inside of the recess had scratches running up and down where seemingly someone had tried to pry the lightsource out but failed.
Winter checked the next car out. It seemed to have been ransacked itself, empty, for storage maybe, and the floor was not much better for sleeping. She noted that the repeated clanging of the bell was just as audible over the sound of the rain. Without going far, Winter had gotten too far from the weak yellow light, and she retreated back to the caboose rather than risk coming into contact with something unknown in the dark.
She was tired and needed to sleep and so Winter lay down on the hard floor and placed a pullover over her eyes. Then she laid her head back onto her bag. Her shoes were wet from the rain. This did not feel comfortable. She could see the amber light poking in through the black threads of her pullover, and she moved it to block out the light. The threads of the layers of the pullover passed like crossing gates, filtering the light, but doing little to block it. She folded it in half against itself and tried again. This was better at dimming the light but now it was creeping in along the edges of her vision. It was hard to get comfortable.
Winter liked the rain, and the rain was crackling against the roof of the car, but through all of the noise was the piercing clanging of the trolley bell. It was much easier to hear it when Winter was still and trying to rest. She counted the rapid clangs over the sequence of her heartbeats.
It was impossible to sleep. She fought with this for minutes.
Winter got up. She pulled the pullover from her eyes, and felt around for the handle for the sliding door. After a third and fourth attempt, angry in the poor light, she got it to open. The sound of the rain filled the windowless room. The constant sheets of rain made Winter hesitate. But she was already wet, and so she hopped down from the floor of the car and looked over the side of the train towards the sound of the bell.
It was darker outside and the rain didn’t make it any easier to see. Winter walked along the stationary train, one hand feeling in the dark to stay close, and her head pointed at the infernal bell. If she had known how long the walk was going to be, she might’ve stayed put. She wiped her face in the dark, not that it mattered, and cursed that she was up this late instead of sleeping. After twenty-five cars, at the front of the train she stood before the bell, flipping up and down and gonging in her ear. It was uncomfortably loud, and Winter would’ve backed away if she didn’t have to destroy it. There was no switch to turn it off. She tried to grab the bell but the first couple of swings scared her when they connected with her hand and she only flinched back. It was slick in the rain. Finally she got hold of it, and found she could, with difficulty, mostly keep it from moving. She tried to bang it against the side of the train to stop it but it wasn’t going to go anywhere but where its path let it. Winter let go of the bell. She stepped back to take her belt off. Then she stepped forward too close and felt the edge of the bell brush her chin. Lucky. She grabbed it, stopped it, and wrapped her belt tight around the clapper, using the remaining length to buckle it. She stepped back to examine her work and the bell set into motion again, the wrapped plastic of the belt thudding against the metal wall of the bell. It was still making noise, but not enough. Winter marched away in the dark dragging her other hand along the side of the train, hoping she would be able to get back to sleep, and with each car she passed, the thudding grew fainter until it couldn’t be heard at all. She knew she had reached the caboose when her hand ran along empty air.
